On one of my classroom visits at
Carrollton Elementary, I stopped in Mrs. Day’s 3rd grade class for a
few minutes. I love seeing students
engaged and active, as well as incorporation of the 4 C’s (creativity, critical
thinking, communication, collaboration).
It was exciting to be able to observe ALL of these taking place in her
lesson and it was obvious that this is what the students were used to on a
daily basis. I wanted to share this excitement with all of you, so I asked Lynn
Briggs to go in and video a typical lesson in Mrs. Day’s classroom.
She was teaching a lesson on
fractions which in my experience as a math teacher, is not an easy topic for
elementary students. She modeled
problems at the board for students, then gave them one to try. But she didn’t want them to do this on their
own, or even work the problem. Instead,
she told them to talk to their buddy about what they would do. The class began buzzing with conversation as
students shared with each other what they would do. I also overhead many of them taking the
activity one step further and explaining the why.
Throughout the lesson, she presented
the information in many different formats and gave the students numerous
opportunities to learn how to subtract fractions. Students worked problems on their desktops
using dry erase markers. They drew
pictures in their math notebooks with colored pencils. They used manipulatives to represent parts of
a whole. And their entire time, they
were collaborating, communicating, being creative and using critical thinking
skills.
Mrs. Day’s students are very active
in the classroom. She knows students
shouldn’t sit for too long. As they say,
“When the bum is numb, the brain is the same.”
She gives her students plenty of opportunities to move around. She would play some music for the kids and
they would walk and dance around the classroom until the music stopped, not
unlike musical chairs. Then they would
partner with someone next to them to work on a problem, using dry erase markers
to write on the desk top while standing.
After some collaboration, the music was back on and off they went to
another partner, another problem, another desk.
It’s so important to make sure our
students are engaged and Mrs. Day incorporates strategies that let the children
have fun while they are learning. She knows it’s much more meaningful and
purposeful to teach by showing and not just be telling. Following in that train of thought, I hope
you enjoy watching the video so you can see for yourself the energy she and her
students have for learning.
