MATH WORKSHOP

I worked in a suburban Omaha school district. In the of Spring 2017, there were 236 students enrolled in our building. In 2016-2017, 46.61% of our school’s students were minorities and 61.44% of our students were a part of the free and reduced lunch program. I was a general educator and worked in a classroom with 18 Kindergarteners; of the 18 students I educated in my classroom daily, 28% received free and reduced lunch and came from non-traditional homes. Half of my students received resource instruction or interventionist pull out support four of the five days a week. The students who received this extra support four days a week worked on concepts to develop their basic academic and social skills. Intervention and resource students were not meeting grade-level academic targets, therefore, during this time students were working on concepts to help them achieve grade-level academic targets. This was important to consider because half of my students received support to help get them to grade-level academic expectations and small group instruction provided a smaller teacher-student ratio with specific learning targets to meet the needs of each student. This provided for more meaningful and differentiated instruction for each student. This method of instruction provided students with a similar structure as intervention and resource time providing students with a familiar instructional model.

 

Daily 2-3 students were tardy to school, arriving to class within the first 20 minutes of instruction time. On a typical day, three or four students entered the room hungry or needed extended time to finish breakfast in the classroom. Often, following lunch and quiet time, four or five students remained in deep sleep into Math instruction time. It was outside of my control to influence the time students arrived at school, the nutrition to which they had access, or that their basic need of sleep was being met adequately. However, understanding these things about my students was important. I recognized that when my students were in the room and ready to learn it was my responsibility to meet the students, in instruction and emotionally, where they were. It was my obligation to make their time in my room engaging and worthwhile so that they wanted to be a part of their own learning. Culturally, as an educator to have success throughout the day, nurturing students first was a must in order to gain trust to then instruct. I motivated students, through academic play, and cut back instructional delays.

 

Math data points, taken throughout the year, showed areas of academic deficiency which needed to be addressed in order to see growth toward grade-level proficiencies. The math curriculum used, in my district, was Math Expressions. The most challenging part of the curriculum was the inconsistency of concepts being taught each day. The jumping around of concepts throughout each unit did not provide my students with the repetition they needed to retain information. Over the course of the units taught, I observed that students were not retaining concepts. I believed this was because of the quick presentation of a concept within the structure of each lesson in Math Expressions.

  

Through observation, I noted students were often off-task or appeared to be bored when working, independently, at their desks. The disengagement in math had the potential to hurt academic growth and scores pertaining to grade-level material. The long duration of whole group instruction and individual desk work each day was hindering student’s ability to socially grow through peer collaboration and academically through non-differentiated instruction and large teacher-student ratio. It was important that students received differentiated instruction, which was accomplished through a small group guided math instruction. This model provided a smaller teacher-student ratio where students received direct attention and instruction that was developmentally appropriate to them individually.

 

On the Fall MAP Math Test, 67% of my students were below standard scoring levels. MAP is an adaptive test given three times a year in math and reading. MAP Data provides a score which is based on student abilities and national and district grade-level norms. The standard deviation, for my class, was a 12.6 which draws attention to the need for differentiated instruction to be provided to students in the content area of math. There were 8 students who scored low or low average on the Fall MAP Test leaving only two students meeting the average guidelines. As over half of my students were pulled to receive intervention support, the concept of guided math instruction helped target specific skills. Targeted, specific, small group instruction benefited all of my students. Students received the individual instruction they needed to grow and expand their learning in mathematics.   

 

According to the behavioral data I tracked there were five interruptions, on average, per day that disrupted whole group instruction. This showed me that movement, academic play, and small group instruction within math was needed during math instruction. The idea of guided math instruction provided motivation to students through station rotations that were set up to engage and portray the idea of play through learning. I saw an uptick in engagement and a downward trend of behavioral issues when guided reading station rotations were implemented. This allowed for the assumption that the same trend would, likely, occur when guided math instruction was implemented.

 

For a qualitative data point, I conducted a math survey with my students to better understand the student perceived strengths and weaknesses of math instructional time. The surveys allowed for student input and student-guided instructional considerations. Every student completed the survey provided to them which consisted of coloring in a happy, sad, or an in-between face to represent their answers. I was looking for particular items such as do they like math, do they consider themselves good at math, is seatwork their favorite part of math, and then I asked them, individually, how they felt they could learn math better.  The overall oral part of the survey I had 13/18 students stating that they would like to play games or use manipulatives more. This showed me one adaptation to my instruction, to better meet the learning needs of my students, is to set up my math instructional block to include small group instruction, play, and manipulatives. Over half of my students marked the in-between face about math being fun and 40% reported a sad face. These data points told me that I was not providing a great atmosphere for all students during math instruction time. I believed I would be able to flip the 55% of in between faces to happy faces with guided math instruction that targeted each student's specific learning needs. The data point on this particular survey that allowed for a definite need to implement guided math was that 55% of the students did not like completing seat work, but 55% of students felt as though they were good at math. Guided math instruction targeted student requests for learning through play, small group instruction, and hands-on desk work.  

 

Baseline data, from district assessments, showed major achievement gaps between students when asked to identify numbers up to 20. Data showed that 44% of students were able to identify 10 or less, 28% could identify 10-19 numbers, and 22% were able to identify all 20 numbers shown. This range of data showed a need for differentiated instruction on this specific, and foundational, skill. Students were expressing different levels of academic knowledge and, therefore, showed the need for small group work, such as guided math instruction.

 

Lengthy, whole group instructional blocks and worksheets were not developmentally appropriate for my kindergarten students. In fact, success was seen when the instruction was differentiated and planned around the particular students it was targeting. Therefore, it was developmentally appropriate for kindergarten students to explore, collaborate, and play to learn. I observed that 85% of the students were engaged and participating when math concepts were applied to developmentally appropriate practices such as games. Students were engaged while playing Around the World Number Sense, providing valuable data demonstrating the needed for games, competition, and collaboration through play to learn.

     

There was a large gap in mathematical knowledge between the students in my classroom. On Unit 1 pretest I had five students score above an 80%, three scored in the middle range of 50%-80%, and the other 10 received a 49% or less. The wide variance in achievement on grade-level work further supported my need for differentiation during my math instructional block.

 

My hope was that guided math instruction would allow me to direct my attention towards each group appropriately by enhancing concepts and re-teaching concepts that students needed. I would be able to help students develop needed skills in order to excel toward kindergarten math standards. These data points showed me the crucial need for differentiated instruction to better guide students within an appropriate practice of math concepts for kindergarten students. This Guided Math model would, theoretically, not only help me meet the varied instructional levels of my learners but would add structured academic play opportunities for my students.   It would be beneficial to see if math instructional time would be enhanced due to increase interaction and social-academic play being conducted while not receiving small group instruction. As an educator, I was unsure of how to meet the varied math levels of students in my room through whole group instruction. I was also unsure of how to keep the entire class engaged for the entire 75-minute math block. However, my goal was to have higher academic success, fewer behavioral issues, and a more meaningful educational environment directed by student needs. I believed this study would meet the varied academic needs of my students through small group math instruction. This study would also help support me as an educator through my career by helping me better understand differentiation and the need to instruct students at their individual levels.