Bio: Dionne is a CPS teacher and currently teaches 5th grade mathematics at Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School. As a teacher of math, she loves the way number work and how you can apply math to every aspect of live. Dionne’s goal is to help her students to develop a love of mathematics through amazing lessons and rich discovery in and out of the classroom.
Narrative of Amazing Teaching Moment: The Purpose of this lesson was to have students discover the role of “Order of Operations” and understanding why it important in evaluating expressions. To begin the lesson, students were presented with an expression to evaluate independently. The expression contained two operations and four numbers. I walked around, observing their work to see what my next step should be. I asked for volunteers to share their answers, making sure that I selected volunteers that I knew had different answers. The different answers were written on the board. Then I asked, “Why do you think we got different answers for the same expression?” Students replied, “Maybe they did the math wrong.” or “Some people may have started in a different order.” I said, “Okay, those sound like good reasons. Let’s see if that’s true.” We went through each person work to check if their math was correct. Then I asked, “If every ones work is correct, then is it the order in which they solve the problem?” I had each student tell me the order they used to solve their problem. This proved to be the reason students got different answers. After seeing this, I asked student, “What do you think can be done to keep this from happening.” I allowed time for discussion and one of the students asked me, “What would happen if we all started at the same place?” I allowed students to explore their thinking. When they were done, I explained that there is a rule for evaluating expressions called “Order of Operations”. Using order of operation ensures that if you execute operations in a specified order you would get the correct answer every time unless you do the math incorrectly. We examined the acronym “PEMDAS” Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division , Addition, and then subtraction.
Hashtags: #studentchoice, #orderofops, #PEMDAS, #mathpractices, #WHY, #5thgrademath, #constructingarguments, #evaluateexressions, #discovery, #followtherules, #mnemonicdivice
BIG 5 IDEAS VITAL TO STEM LESSONS
1. STUDENT CENTERED: Student centered learning experiences lead to conceptual understanding through the full exploration of concepts and student misconceptions in a way that passive learning cannot.
2. PRESENTED IN A CREATIVE WAY: Creativity allows students access the content from a variety of perspectives and gives them the opportunity to express their ideas in an authentic way.
3. TRANSFERABLE TO OTHER CONTENT AREAS AND INTERDISCIPLINARY: Connecting concepts to a broader context makes learning more meaningful and is more likely be retained because it is integrated into students’ schema.
4. OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPANSION: Expanding provides opportunities for students to take their learning beyond an individual lesson or project. Students can then problem solve to understand others’ ideas.
5. POSITIVE CLASSROOM CULTURE: Providing a safe space where students are encouraged to make their thinking public. This allows them to challenge their thinking while addressing misconceptions.