Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Primary 4 CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel



Lesson Study at CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel

Visitors, comprising mostly school leaders, from England and the US got a glimpse into one way Singapore teachers develop themselves.

We gate-crashed the lesson study efforts of two mathematics teams.

This achor task was meant to help students see that a composite figure consists of simple rectangles (and squares). 

In the subsequent guided practice, the group I was observed, confused between perimeter and area. I would suggest rephrasing the question as how many times is the figure as big as a 1-square cm. However, the bigger question is how do we help such students possess the metacognitive ability to know that they were doing something incorrect, which they did in rapid succession and not stopping to say that they may be wrong.

Students had difficulties in distinguishing area from perimeter, in seeing the component rectangles and using correct information in the formula to calculate area of rectangles. How can the anchor task be tweaked to help the weakest students in overcoming these difficulties? I imagine the revised lesson plan would consider these points and also how to help more students reach the highest level response (saying that the area formula for square and rectangle are the same and seeing the subtraction method in finding area of composite figures). The team members saw the benefits of (1) time provided to explore (2) time for discussion (3) use of concrete manipulative. These were the three main points raised during the very brief post-lesson discussion we did. I suppose the team will discussed this at greater length subsequently  | Lesson Study May Bee

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Primary 5 Chua Chu Kang Primary School

Observation - students raced through each problem indicating that they had no difficulty in reading and comprehending the word problems given. They seemed to thrive on higher-order questions the teacher threw at them eg how are the methods alike, how are they different, which is better, which one would you use.

Less is More
Instead of doing five problems, one anchor tasks will do the same thing and perhaps more.

"Ali, Ben and Cheryl share some money in the ratio of 4:2:1.

What if $28 is the greatest amount?
What if $28 is the total amount?
What if $28 is how much more Ali received than Ben?
What if $28 is how much Ali and Ben received? What is the greatest number of 50-cent coins Ben has? What is the greatest number of 20-cent coins Ben has? What if how much Ali and Ben has is not $28 but $432? In this case, what is the least number of coins Ben has?
 

Monday, April 6, 2015

Lesson Study at Chua Chu Kang Primary School

In this and other discussions, we will pay attention to knowledge of (a) curriculum (b) content (c) students (d) ourselves.

Lesson Study Publication

 
Available on Amazon

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

LSP102 Lesson Planning

This course was held at Punggol Primary School on 9 January 2014.


Thursday, September 26, 2013

Lesson Study at Japanese School in Connecticut

Please save the date: Greenwich Japanese School Open House, Friday, 15 November 2013

Place: Greenwich, CT

The public research lessons have been confirmed:

Apple (Special Education): Mathematics in Shopping 
Gr. 3: Multiplication Algorithm - Two-digit times one-digit
Gr. 5: Investigating Interior Angles 
Gr. 7: 3-D Figures - Spatial Figures (Polyhedrons)

Lesson plans will be sent to Open House participants.

Detailed information will be available by next week at www.globaledresources.com