Lesson Plan for Activity 1

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Summary of Activity 1: Getting To Know You

Prospective teachers conduct one or more visits (including virtual visits) to the community surrounding their field-placement school. There are various options for these visits, depending on the particular circumstances of each methods site. These visits may involve posing and investigating a problem related to the community setting.


Launch

Conduct a discussion about prospective teachers’ current knowledge of the community in which they are conducting their field observation/student teaching and about their thoughts about how the community might be a resource for students’ mathematics learning. Full lesson plan includes a list of sample questions to guide discussion and three optional activities.


Explore

During the visits, prospective teachers should LOOK for and DOCUMENT evidence of mathematics and talk to individuals who work/play/shop in the setting about how they use mathematics, and when possible, take pictures and/or collect artifacts to document evidence of mathematical activity. The goal here is for prospective teachers to recognize mathematical practices in children’s communities and to take note of things in the neighborhood or school that they hadn’t noticed before or that surprised them. Several optional activities that could occur during this section are included in the full lesson plan.


Summarize

Following the community visits, conduct whole or small group discussions to support prospective teachers in reflecting on their experiences. Full lesson plan includes sample questions for facilitating discussions and an optional activity.

Goals for Community Walk Activity

  • engage in students’ communities by visiting community locations, and as much as possible, dialoguing with children, families and community members about their home and community-based activity.
  • increase knowledge and familiarity with students’ communities, particularly of activities and practices that might relate to mathematics instruction, and in doing so, challenge deficit-based or stereotypical assumptions about students’ communities. Prospective teachers will begin to see children as members of communities, and see communities as including home and family based activity, as well as broader community relationships, contexts and activities.
  • increase knowledge of students’ out of school activities and practices, including the activities students engage in after school, and students’ perspectives on their own communities (what community locations are familiar to students, etc).
  • broaden perspectives and understandings of students’ competencies (and the competencies of family members and community members), by recognizing ways that students see and use mathematics in the home and outside of school.

 

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