Divisibility lesson
St. Joseph's School | 5th Grade | Math | Present: 24
students, teacher and myself | 2 hours field experience including
reflection time
Background
As part of the Math: Methods and Practices course, I am observing a 5th grade classroom at the private St. Joseph's school in Seattle. The particular lesson I observed was focused on the concept of
divisibility. The class has been talking about divisibility and the
various rules that help determine whole number divisibility by 2, 3, 5,
6, 9 and 10. In this lesson, it was time to practice the application of the rules so they might be set in memory.
While, in general, I tend to question all lessons and learning focused on memorization, I chose for this lesson to leave aside that disagreement and focus on how one might help students memorize material in a way that is meaningful to them.
Key Observations and Methods
I made note of 4 different areas in my observations. They were —
Methods used:
The instructor used team work which made learning feel like a game and brought it closer to home to the learners.
To help with memorization, the instructor asked the class to come up with example numbers and had the class as a whole and as individuals practice the application of the rules.
The instructor invited students to take a leadership role in teaching the rules.
The homework assignment came out of the game in class. Students were asked to identify the golden number that would be divisible by all the whole numbers they had learned rules for.
Teacher choices:
The instructor had some very critical choices to make during this lesson, including —
Which whole numbers to teach divisibility patterns for
Using specific phrases like determining divisibility with an 'eye test' that the whole class would then understand and use
Leave enough room for expansion in the lesson for those students who got the concepts readily — like asking students for their personal tricks in recognizing divisibility
The specific activities and means of teaching the concept
Takeaways
I was impressed by the variety of ways in which memorization can be accomplished without require workbook based activities. Games, student leadership in teaching concepts, meaningful homework, team work are all great examples of this.