Video Analysis 2

 This blog will be a video analysis. The video that I will be analyzing is a lesson for fourth grade that deals with multiplication and division, and it was called "number operations". The planning was the teachers and students going over just what constituted multiplication and division.The students had to talk with their partners before sharing as a class. During this time, the teacher was trying to get the students to understand the big idea that the groups were equal.She was also trying to get the students to understand how creating pictures to solve problems worked. Then the students did mental math before the teacher had the students complete the word problem. The specific activity was the students solving the problem of Maria saving $24 and Wayne saved three times less than her.
                  The teacher had the students look at the problem then gave each student a piece of paper that had the problem on it. After each student was given the piece of paper, they were instructed to take it back to their desks and work on it individually for a minute than they could look at their partners. After they students completed the problem, they came back together as a class and discussed ideas and answers.
                     The faculty debriefing was very interesting. It consisted of the teacher and three observers. The teacher discussed how the students had been almost conditioned to understand that multiplication is like addition, and division is like subtraction. Along with that idea, she said that especially the division is like subtraction idea was interesting because most people don't see division as like repeated subtraction. One of the observers brought up the point that peer pressure might have something to do with why some of the students had their answers the way they had them. The teacher than discussed how she had to drag the idea of the equal groups out, and she had to almost prompt them to expand of the addition and subtraction ideas. One of the implications that I noticed was the whole misconception about the 24 or 32 dilemma. It looked like the observers and the teachers automatically thought they would be on the right track. The student debriefing was also useful because it showed just what students knew what they were doing because I noticed that a lot of the same students were answering or sharing ideas during the discussions which is why the teacher had to prompt for other students to share.
                      Overall, I thought the video was an excellent resource and was utilized perfectly. It shows just how important collaborating can be by having the observers in the classroom, and involved in the planning and reflection processes. The video especially is an excellent tool for reflection in many areas. For example you can tell where certain things may not have gone as you had planned. A perfect example was the confusion about the 24 or 32, and the kids relying on their peers answers or peers mathematical thinking at times. This also proves that by debriefing with your colleagues, you can also find out just what ideas need to be revisited. I also liked how the video was split into segments. It allowed me to look at them a lot closer, and it made it easy for me to watch certain parts more than once when I needed to.So, all in all it helped me realize just what I need to do when I start teaching math, and it also taught me some things that could be adapted.