Ricchio-Student work blog Week 6

This week I observed my students Everyday Math journals. My students are working on number sense and putting numbers in a sequence order. I looked at one student in particular because I noticed him consistently making mistakes in his homework although when we did math problems as a class he would get everything correct. The questions would say to skip by 2s and he would start skipping by 2s and then begin counting by 1s.  I looked at his math journal and I immediately noticed it wasn't that he didn't know the answers-he was just rushing. I asked him why he answered a problem the way he did and he said, "Oh, I didn't read the directions." From this I realized to also take into account outside factors that may distract students from their work. If he does his homework on a loud, noisy, crowded bus then he's probably not looking at everything clearly or closely. I shouldn't assume he doesn't know the information or is struggling. That is why it is so important to have conversations with your students and understand their thinking. You can learn so much in a couple minutes. I asked him to tell me the correct sequence and he was able to do so perfectly.