Wek 7- Patterns HW Robb

Student Work Blog Week 7

After giving my students the opportunity to create their own Halloween patterns and introducing them to “A-B-C” patterns, I followed up with the following sheet for homework. Students had the opportunity to produce several different kinds of answers for their problems, which allowed me to understand their thinking about patterns. Students came up with many ways to complete the patterns in “part A” and also created a variety of patterns in “part B”. Some students thought about patterns based on the shapes/pictures and completed their patterns by drawing the picture that came next and using solely illustrations in creating their own patterns. Student 1 took this a step further and used a combination of both illustrating and labeling the patterns.

            What this example of student work is showing me is that this student has a very full understanding of patterns and pattern creation. Without much prompting, this student recognizes that their pattern is an “AB” pattern.

            Student 2’s work is unique. She is the only student who solely used letters to represent her patterns. She is an ELL who primarily speaks Spanish at home. All of her answers are correct. 

            I wanted to make this task open ended. I did not direct students to “draw” or “label” or “color” their patterns. My only directive at the top of the page was “what comes next?” This student interpreted that to mean that she could use letters to represent the next “piece” of the pattern, and I think it is just as bright of an answer as the students whose pages are full of color. Her answers are quite formulaic, and I will be interested to hear her thinking when we discuss our answers.

            Student 3 used colors in completing her task. “Part A” of her task is very well done, her color scheme is logical and her answers are correct. However when give the opportunity to create her own pattern, her work reveals that her knowledge of pattern concepts do not extended into a realm that is just a bit more abstract.

            This student shows that she needs more practice with creating her own patterns and applying the concepts she uses to solve “part A’s” problems to part be. With a class discussion and presentation of other students thinking, and another group task, I think shoe could achieve this handily because she does express that she has enough knowledge to complete pattern sets.