Learner.Org Annenberg Media Video: Domino Math

http://www.learner.org/resources/series32.html?pop=yes&vodid=411348&pid=878#

In this Annenberg Media Teaching Math K-4 clip, Mrs. Wright, a teacher at William Monroe Trotter School, leads a multi-grade classroom of first and second graders in a number facts activity. Wright uses dominos and stickers as a manipulative to demonstrate using counting to understand the properties of sums. The students observe as Mrs. Wright demonstrates using the dominos and stickers to identify different combinations of numbers that produce the same sum, then break into groups of three to work on finding different sums. The students are given challenges and an extension activity, writing number sentences, as they finish their work.

Mrs. Wright's activity uses problem solving to teach "a lesson that doesn't need the teacher up front" (her own words) as described by Van De Walle in"Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally." As Mrs. Wright points out, the activity uses questions that are open ended, with no one right answer. Students work cooperatively to produce correct responses and explain why their answers work using number facts. The groups are carefully arranged with at least one strong counter in each, and second graders can be observed helping first graders clarify their ideas -- something I enjoyed as a third grader in a multi-age classroom when I was in elementary school. Wright encourages conversation using prompts like, "tell me what's missing," and circulates the room both to keep students on task and to encourage extended thinking. The dominos and stickers might also be a useful tool when teaching other whole number concepts.

Mathematical Processes: Place Value Centers

For our Elementary Math methods course with Professor Robert Barry, our first assignment involves a series of Annenberg Media videos available online at learner.org. The first video used in our tasks is "Place Value Centers," based around a first grade lesson taught by Ms. Vigstrom at Palla Elementary in California.

Ms. Vigstrom's lesson is well-aligned with the three-step lesson planning approach associated with teaching through problem solving, but is more teacher-centered at its outset than many problem solving lessons. Early in the video, Vigstrom describes her goals for the lesson: familiarizing students with place value and building their readiness for double-digit addition, subtraction, and associated number patterns through the practice of exchanging ones and tens.

Ms. Vigstrom begins her lesson with a "lead-up activity" drawing on the students' prior knowledge based on their experience of counting their days in school using sticks and bundles. Vystrom transfers this idea to her "giant place value mat," substituting sticks and bundles with cubes and rods, and demonstrates the use of this manipulative using students' ages as a personalized example. She further transfers the concept of grouping tens from the model to a written format. During her introduction, Vigstrom draws on her students to explain strategies such as counting from ten.

The second element in Ms. Vigstrom's lesson plan is a set of four activity centers the students work in pairs to complete. The centers connect the idea of grouping ones into tens using a measuring activity, a sorting activity, an illustrating activity, and a race to connect, group, and count cubes. In the illustrating activity, students interpret a written number using blocks. The number is shown in the context of a 100-number chart (we have seen these charts used for addition, subtraction, and even multiplication activities in other videos, I think one will be a must-have item for my future classroom shopping list!).

The measuring activity seems to be the most exciting ones for students, who are heard making comments such as, "Please measure me, I can't wait all day!" and comparing their respective heights based on the lengths of the rods they create with cubes. I really like the idea of using measurement to explore place value because connections are made between units of measure and counting units.

Extension Questions: Why did Ms. Vigstrom have students work at centers?
What is the value of using different manipulatives to explore the same concept?

Vigstrom shares her idea that using different manipulatives in centers is helpful because each student approaches the topic from a different background and will develop an understanding of the concept of place value differently than a peer will. During their center work, Vigstrom circulates the classroom asking extension questions such as "can you tell me what you did?" and "What is the nine for?" in order to prepare students for class discussion. The students convene to discuss their discoveries and the connections made during the center activities. They test their discoveries in other contexts based on prompts from Vigstrom, who asks general questions as well as more specific concept-related prompts such as "what does the number on the left side [of a written two-digit number] stand for?"

The lesson on Place Value Centers includes the NCTM standards of number sense, measurement, and connections.