Lesson #5 Reflection-Parallel teaching with Rochelle: Math (Mrs.

Britt Observation)
I co-taught this lesson parallel to Ms. Lovelace, on November 6th , 2013 in a 6-8th grade selfcontained TMD classroom. Majority of these students math skills were between k-1st grade abilities. So when developing this lesson we had to constantly ask ourselves can our students do this successfully? We found that having each other to bounce ideas off of made planning easier and move faster. We both came into planning this lesson with ideas. Previously to administering this lesson we meet once to formulate the lesson plan. During this meeting we decided to use the parallel co-teaching strategy because of the small class size and the little difference between skill levels. After establishing type of strategy we were going to use we divided students in to groups because skill levels were similar we didnt divide students on ability level we merrily divided them evenly. When then went on to decide on the math standard we wanted the student to focus on, using the SC ALT extended standards as a guide as well as observations made throughout our clinical experience we decided we wanted students to be able to add whole numbers up through 10 when given a worksheet. We also wanted them to be able to identify a number as a written word and vice versa. The teaching of the lesson, we felt, went smoothly. The lesson began in a whole group setting by engaging student in an interactive SMART board game. We decided to only allow about 2minutes on this activity. We then instructed to students were to go. After groups were settled we simultaneously began our instructions by glancing at each other when we were ready to begin. We began group instruction with using manipulative cards to solve addition problems on white boards and then showing work and correcting any errors, we previously decided on only performing 5 of these cards. The struggle with this as with the whole lesson was time management and alignment with each other. Next students tool turns matching numbers with their corresponding words and vice versa as directed by myself, limiting student to numbers 0-10. We then concluded lesson with a worksheet that combined all activities. This again was a struggle in time management and alignment. Although I finished about a minutes before Ms. Lovelaces group, I thought we paced and adjusted very well to all hiccups. Not just in time management but for my group behavioral issues due to a student not receiving his medicine before coming to school. To accommodate his inability to focus, he was allowed breaks between doing problems and activities to doodle on his white board to prevent him from doing doodling during all of the instructional time. Some changes I would make would be to state behavioral expectation going to, from, and in small group instruction. But the overall experience of planning and implementing this co-taught lesson was nice. I felt we collaborated well and made a challenging experience easier to grasp. We did have the advantage of working with each other in other Lander classes and being assigned to the same cooperating classroom. If the chance to co-teach, in the future, ever comes along I think it is something I could implement when given a willing teacher, although I found this method harder to adjust to.