SDTR Year 2 Trimester 1 | Ms Peetz Teacher

Year 2 Trimester 1: Master's of Education

In the second year of the San Diego Teacher Residency, my cohort and I were split into groups determined by similar student demographics of age and subject. My group consisted of another math teacher who teaches Integrated Math 3, a math teacher who teaches calculus, and an engineering/Spanish teacher. I myself teach Integrated Math 2 and Math 3 so I was in good company.

Before we began our lesson study process, we needed to nail down a common problem of practice and research theme that we wanted to try to improve in our classrooms. We decided to pursue the question, "how do we foster a community that is curious about topics and collaborates with one another?

You may view the lesson study memorialization document HERE

PDSA Cycle 1 revolved around gathering data on and encouraging student discussion. We gathered baseline data that could be used to compare future test to - a placebo if you will. We also used this as an opportunity to spark the students' thinking about their in-class discussions and debriefs. To facilitate this, we held non-content discussions and set norms before beginning.

PDSA Cycles

We continued trying to foster discussion (non-content for now) in our classrooms with PDSA Cycle 2, this time reiterating norms, having students commit to a norm before having the discussion. We then directly asked students to reflect on the quality of their discussion with questions in which they needed to recall and respond to what their classmate's had said.

Formal Lesson Study 1

Lesson Content and Plan: In this lesson, students were introduced to polynomial equations facilitated by an interactive online tool, Desmos Classroom. Students used the tool in pairs or triplets to work through problems that introduced the idea of roots and factors and writing polynomial equations. This was the first lesson of the new unit, and is thus introductory and exploratory in nature.

Lesson Study Goal: For our formal lesson study, we again attempted to promote student discussion and collaboration by having students swap laptop 'user' while working through the Desmos activity, which is controlled similarly to a Google Slides or PowerPoint slide deck by the students themselves.

Lesson Study Data, Observations, and Reflection

(Student names blocked for privacy)

While Erik conducted the lesson, Noah, Juan, and I positioned ourselves near tables so that we could each observe and listen for student discussions and questions between pairs. Whilst we listened, we took notes with an organizer that Noah then compiled onto this sheet. We used this sheet to reflect back on our observations of the lesson and analyzed how well the swapping format aided discussion. Our focal students, unfortunately, were in pairs 8 and 10 and both were the students that disengaged for a majority of the lesson. So for this cycle, we failed to reach our focal students effectively due to circumstances surrounding keeping students in the classroom. The rest of the class tended to utilize the lesson format effectively, and although our focal students that we had picked were not reached, we saw vast improvements in other students who had struggled similarly to our focal students in terms of participation in discussions and 'math talk.' Whilst overall happy with this cycle's outcomes, our attention has now been brought to the issue of keeping students in the classroom as well. We can't help students if they aren't present to begin with.