Montague

Yesterday our students worked more with addition and subtraction problems. We started the lesson off by doing a quick warm up with cards on the board. We started with 5 cards and put 3 more up. We asked them how many we had all together. The students counted them all and gave the answer. As they were doing this, my MT went over how to write the problem with numbers and draw dots next to it to match. Then we followed by reading a book called 16 runaway pumpkins, which gave us an introduction to the subtraction problems. After the book, I modeled different subtraction and addition problems that were drawn on the board. I then had students come up and do it with me and followed by having students come up and work together to do it. Then they were sent back to their seats to work on the worksheet on their own.

I looked over all of the students’ papers and for the most part, the majority of the class performed rather poorly on this activity. I think that they must not have had enough time before going off on their own or did not listen to directions. The paper that I am going to focus on is one where a student who got all of the subtraction problems correct but missed all of the addition problems. This artifact obviously reveals that he has a good grasp on subtraction but not necessarily for addition. I do not believe it means he does not understand addition, I think it could mean that or it could be that he was in a hurry and miscounted those. I thought that this student’s worksheet was actually quite interesting because I have typically considered addition to be the ‘simpler’ of the two operations therefore to see this student do so well on the subtraction and so poorly on the addition it was rather surprising.

One way that I might advance this student’s mathematical understanding given my analysis of this work is to give this same worksheet again, with more clear directions. I would also like to see if more time would help. Then if it still shows the same results, I would be more concerned that he does not understand addition. However, I do not think I would be worried. The fact that he can understand the subtraction problems makes me feel confident that he will be able to catch up with the addition but just needs a little more practice and instruction. Therefore, another way I might advance this student’s mathematical understanding is give more opportunities for him to explore with addition problems. I would give him manipulatives to work with and even some centers in which he can practice with addition problems. I think that a good high level or open ended addition problem may be good for this student so that I can see where his understanding lies in terms of addition.