Working with Decimals Mira David Grade 5, PAS Objectives: Students will use place value understanding to round
und decimals to any place Apply real-world understanding to quantities less than one Illustrate Locate?? quantities less than one on a number line
Materials: white board easel Exit Ticket (copies for each student) Work and Explore problem (copies for each student) Mira, Im writing this after having read through the entire lesson. Im noticing to things. First, your lesson is definitely designed to help students develop and discuss their strategies, but it does not seem designed to help them learn specific skills or concepts until the very end. For the most part, you are giving students tasks to do and having them describe how they did them, but it is unclear what you want to them to focus on or think about when doing the tasks. What do they need to understand other think about when rounding a number to the nearest tenth, for instance? You need to plan for these ideas to get developed earlier on in the lesson. Since you are very interested in these ideas being developed by the students, you will need to plan how you will bring them out. What questions will you ask to be sure they understand the rules for round? How will you get students to talk about what they understand about tenths? The second thing (which is related to the first point) is that there are two important concepts central to this lesson and it is unclear how you plan to introduce or develop either of them. The first is the concept of rounding. What does rounding mean? How is related to estimating? What are the specific conventions followed when rounding? The second concept is place value, particularly involving decimals. Now it seems like you want to use rounding to help students think about the structure of decimal numbers, but that is not entirely clear to me. Hook (15 min): Working individually, students will complete a word problem. After 5 minutes, they will do a Partner Talk with a pre-assigned partner. Students will be instructed on what a good PartnerTalk looks and sounds like: 1. 2. 3. 4. Partner A shares their his/her solution, chronologically a. What did I think about in order to make sense of this problem b. What lingering questions do I have Partner B asks for points of clarification Partner B shares their his/her solution Partner A asks for points of clarification The length of a ribbon is 1.28 inches. The length of a rope is 2.74 inches longer than the ribbon. What is the length of the rope?
Solution: 1.28 + 2.74 = 4.02 The length of the rope is 4.02 m. Partners will decide upon which method they want to share with the entire group. One partner pair is asked to share their solution process. Group is asked if anyone solved the problem very differently but got the same (correct) answer. If so, allow that person to share their process, as well. [what will you be look for in their solutions? Where do you want this sharing to go? What math concepts are you hoping to have come out here?] Work and Explore (15 min): Now, if I wanted to know about how long the rope is, what would you say? Good, we look at 4.02 and see that .02 is very close to zero on a number line, so we round 4.02 to say 4 inches. Lets look at this on a number line: 4 inches 5 inches Show me where you would draw 4.02 inches on this number line. What if I asked you to round 4.8 to the nearest tens place on the number line. Someone show me what you might draw. Do we agree or disagree? Why? When we work with decimals, we can round to specific places, such as tens, hundreds, thousands, or tenths, hundredths, thousandths. I would like you to work with your partners from earlier and round this number to the tens, tenth, thousands, and hundrethshundredths place: 1,234.574 Rounded to the tens place: Rounded to the tenth place: Rounded to the thousands place: Rounded to the hundrethshundredths place: Lets review. Call students to the board to show their solution process. Debrief/Wrap-up: Here are some of of the things that I am noticing: 1. When we round to the tens, we need to look at the tenths place 2. When we draw this number on a number line, we can clearly see when we have tipped the scale and the number is closer to one number or the other
What are some other things that we have noticed about rounding numbers? Exit Ticket (Individual Assessment) Before you leave, take the last 5 minutes to try rounding with this number, individually: 3,835.794 Round to the hundreds place: Round to the hundredths place: Round to the thousands place:
What: In this lesson plan, students will refine their understanding of decimals smaller than one. Beginning with a warm-up that asks students to apply their understanding of decimals in the realworld, learners will work individually, and then in partner-pairs, to make sense of a joining problem that demands manipulation of decimal amounts. Building upon this real-world application, students will be asked to consider rounding of decimals as an approximation. They will be instructed in the use of a number line as a tool for rounding decimal amounts, and then will apply this general knowledge of rounding to the rounding of very large numbers to a specific place-value. Looking at various examples that they have completed in class, students will be asked to make generalizations regarding the rules of rounding decimal amounts. These learning goals tie directly to NCTM Standards for fifth grade. Common Core Standards for 5.4 NBT Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place What do students need to understand in order to understand decimals? What are the important mathematical ideas? [Link] Students must have a firm grasp of place value terminology in order to successfully engage with this lesson. They also must understand that rounding is used to simplify a number and is similar to the process that they engage in when estimating. Students might not be used to engaging in partner-talk to the degree demanded of them in this lesson, however, I would like to experiment with this general structure of having students work independently, pairing and sharing as partners, and then sharing as a group. By providing students with explicit instruction on what good partner-talk looks like, I hope to give students enough guidance so that they can be successful with this strategy. How: Students will engage in Partner-Talk, which facilitates the articulation and synthesis of mathematical concepts. It also posits learner as practitioner--a central component to my philosophy of teaching. This lesson is largely student-led. After reflecting upon my previous teaching this year, I recognize a tension between how much I feel I should be speaking, and how much I actually dominate the lesson. I would like to use this lesson as an opportunity implement a student-driven approach to teaching and learning math. In this role, I will largely rely on talk-moves in order to stimulate discussion surrounding student questions and solutions.
This lesson relies heavily on peer discourse as a primary tool for math learning. I want students to begin to understand math as a social activity--one that they can puzzle over together and exploit each others understanding in order to add depth to their own. Additionally, students will be explicitly instructed in the use of number lines as a tool for rounding decimals. The norms in this classroom are implicit in my use of partner-talk. This practice emphasizes the necessity for active listening as a vehicle for further understanding. Articulation of ones thinking is another norm implicit in this model. Why: This lesson fits within the current unit of study for fifth-grade students using the Investigations curriculum. The goals for this lesson are matched to standards set by the pacing guide that my classroom mentor follows. This lesson reflects my commitment to making math practical, relevant, and easily understood by students by relating units of study to their everyday lives. Additionally, I believe that students should have opportunities to engage with each other as a vehicle for deeper understanding. Therefore, I have designed this lesson to intentionally engage students in full-group and partner discourse. As a student teacher, I am particularly interested in uncovering the level of teacher-directed instruction that students require when attempting unknown material. I believe that because this lesson is saturated in real-world examples, students will require less guidance with the mathematics than they might if given decontextualized problems.
Partner Talk
Person A talks to Person B
Partner B asks questions to partner A about their solution
Partner B talks to Partner A
Partner A asks questions to Partner B about their solution
Select one partner to share their process.
Name: Work and Explore Please show your work for each step of this problem. 1,234.574 1. Rounded to the tens place: 2. Rounded to the tenth place: 3. Rounded to the thousands place: 4. Rounded to the hundreths place: 5. How would you pronounce this number?
Date:
Name: Exit Ticket
Date:
Please show your work for each step of this problem. 3,835.794 Rounded to the hundreds place: Rounded to the hundreths place: Rounded to the thousands place: How do you pronounce this number? One thing I really liked about partner talk was: _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ___ One thing I really didnt like about partner talk was: _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ___