Blog #1: Math 🤝 Educational Technology 

Although this math resource was a by-product of the dreadful CalTPA, my kindergarten students loved it so much that it will now become a staple when teaching addition and subtraction! 

And a step-by-step lesson plan directly copied and pasted from my CalTPA write-up below for your reading pleasure...

-First I will engage my students in a discussion on the academic language they’ve learned in previous lessons. This helps activate prior knowledge and provides greater comprehension through multiple means of representation (UDL 3.1). 

-I will then recruit conceptual understanding from the precious lessons by having them act out a math scene. This helps their engagement and expression of math concepts by incorporating physical action to help them remember the concepts they’ve previously learned, in order to link it onto the new lesson today. This provides multiple means of action and expression through physical action (UDL 4). 

-After representing a math story by acting it out, I will explicitly introduce the vocabulary needed for this math lesson, thus providing multiple means of representation by clarifying vocabulary terms and symbols they will need to know to be successful in this lesson (UDL 2.1). I will ask them to think about the vocabulary by asking them a question using it, then we will discuss their answers before moving on. Please

-I will place them into strategic pairs to help elicit more academic language, ELD, and dialogue about their math reasoning rather than work on their own, thus providing multiple means of engagement through fostering collaboration and community (UDL 8.3). 

-I will have them complete 6 problems, 3 addition and 3 subtraction problems where they will be in charge of coming up to the board after they’ve been given an opportunity to think through the problem quietly on their own and talk about it with a partner. By showing their work to the class, it helps keep them engaged by providing autonomy and relevancy as they must show their work to the class (UDL 7.1). They can volunteer themselves to come up and first represent the problem and then solve it, giving them further autonomy in choosing whether or not they want to come up to show their math thinking.

-They will also be challenged to answer “how do you know?” when they come up and represent their problem on the board after they solve it, which will encourage academic language development and higher-order thinking because it requires them to explain their math reasoning and reflect on their conceptual understanding of how they solved the problem. don't

-I will also encourage them to try out the math equation frames on the smartboard which would require them to use the academic language terms they’ve learned in the past few lessons such as the words “minus”, “plus”, and “equals”. 

-I will be using the smartboard with them to work through these problems because it provides multiple means of representation through visuals in addition to me auditorily explaining the problems to them (UDL 1.2, 1.3). Moreover, there is a physical and kinesthetic component to the smartboard as they will be moving parts around on the board to represent and solve problems which they love doing and thus builds on their assets and interests. 

-The following new lesson on the smartboard described above will be further broken down into these steps:

-I will model problems providing multiple means of action and expression by supporting my students’ executive functioning skills as modeling helps break things down into step by step they can visualize. This then helps them process the information and manage the new instructions better (UDL 6.3). 

-We will start with addition and move onto subtraction. Before switching gears, I will check in with them and provide academic language reminders on actually what “minus” and other synonyms of subtraction are so they are aware of the task, providing multiple means of engagement through making salience of goals and objectives heightened (UDL 8.1) and what is being asked on them, in addition to further deepening their recall of academic language. 

-While a student is representing a problem on the smartboard and solving it, I will be able to informally assess their content-specific learning goals and provide support and feedback as necessary.

-At the very end of each problem, I will ask again what does it mean to “take away” and what does it mean to “add” again referring to the anchor chart to provide multiple means of representation through a visual (UDL 1.2) from the first lesson of the sequence to remind them of the words and the resource they can use if they forget the words. read this. 

-They will then hear me explain that I will meet with them one on one later to ask them some more math questions about today’s lesson which helps them set expectations for later and to know what’s coming next, providing multiple means of engagement because they know they will be asked to recall the things they learned in math today with me, thus promoting expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation (UDL 9.1) During the formal assessment time, I will ask them the formal assessment questions I detailed under the evidence and assessment section of this lesson plan.

This lesson is so intuitive, simple, and fun for students you will not need a step-by-step. 

Trust.

Maybe you have clicked the link to the lesson maybe you have not. But here are the basics on how to run the lesson. And my sales pitch on why using educational technology for math is worthy of your time. 

The run down:

• The pizza toppings are moveable and the number next to them correlates to what is supposed to be represented.

• Model the first two problems for your students so they have a sense how to use the educational technology. Also provide them any background knowledge and academic language needed for this lesson now. Such as "what does minus mean?" "What about addition?".

• After they represent a problem ask them:

  • • • • "How many toppings do you have?" AND CRUCIALLy "How do you know?"

        • That last question challenges them to develop their conceptual and mathematical reasoning skills. And their academic language. 

• There are equation frames on each slide to encourage your students to use precise academic language when explaining their math reasoning. For example, a student would say "4 minus 1 equals 3". The frames provide a scaffold for them if needed.