Jack and Taralyn Reflection

Our objectives for this lesson were as follows: Students will be able to identify
fractions in the form of pictures, create fractions by using manipulatives, rewrite fractions
in simplest form, recognize the connection between improper fractions and mixed, identify
numerator and denominator, recite the shown fraction accurately, and recognize the
connection between improper fractions and mixed numbers. I believe that we did achieve
these objectives because we gave Jack the opportunity to engage in each one. He used
manipulatives, drew fractions, and verbalized his thoughts to get better understanding of
fractions, simplest form, improper fractions, and mixed numbers. Since he had probably
never been taught how to do improper fractions or mixed numbers, we were nervous to
present these ideas to him. However, I believe he gained an understanding, and he was able
to do some problems by himself without assistance from us. I think we knew that we
achieved our objectives because he was able to do them without our help at some point. It
took practice for him to understand some concepts, but he reached a level of understanding
where he was able to write the fractions, use manipulatives, recite and communicate his
points, and engage in the Velcro board without our help. Overall, I think we achieved our
objectives.
It was very important that he verbalized what he was thinking, so we asked him a
lot of questions so that he could express his ideas to us. With encouraging him to verbalize,
we challenged him because he had to give us answers about problems when he had just
learned about them. He had to really grasp the ideas that we presented to him in order to
communicate his points. We also challenged him to use the new vocabulary that we taught
him, such as, mixed numbers, improper fractions, simplest form, and denominator and
numerator. These were all terms that he was unfamiliar with or did not remember from
school. Therefore, we pushed him to use these new words as a part of his mathematical
vocabulary. We wanted him to understand the words, so that he could use them in his
explanations.
I think that our lesson challenged him and wasnt too easy for him. There were
times we had to reinforce certain topics because he did not grasp them at first. So, we knew
that it was challenging, but also not too easy. What I think we could have changed would be
the visual of a pizza pie. It was difficult to explain a whole and parts using slices and a
whole pie. We stumbled on some explanations because we had to get the point across that
8 slices meant one whole or one pie. I would have liked to use a different visual for
fractions. We could have used animals in a farm with a certain capacity as the whole, that
way, he would have been able to tell the difference between the animals and how many
were left over.
What we would have to change would be how in depth we went into fractions. I
dont think we would have included improper fractions, mixed numbers, and maybe
simplest form. I would expect them to begin to grasp the idea of fractions with a numerator
and denominator. I would hope he would understand the numerator is the parts of the
fraction and the denominator is the whole or out of how many. Visuals would be an
excellent resource to incorporate so that the student would be able to build connections
between, pizza slices for example, and the actual written fraction. I would want him to be
able to write a fraction when given a visual, and vice versa.