Grade: 6th grade |
Subject Area: Mathematics |
General Characteristics:
There are 24 students in my 6th grade class at Waccamaw Intermediate School ranging in age from 11 to 12 years old. The students come from moderate to high socioeconomic environments and 78% of them are white. There are two students in my class that have IEPs. One child is high functioning with accommodations for extra time and guided notes. He has some trouble in math with his confidence and speed. The other student has a full-time aid and is not able to sit in the classroom for more than fifteen to twenty minutes. The student who does not sit in the class is obviously having significant academic struggles. The rest of the students are on grade level with 6 pulling out for Gifted and Talented math instruction. The students are generally well behaved and enjoy activities where they can be collaborative and ask questions. They do not respond well to textbook and workbook reading activities.
Entry Competencies:
The students, in general, are able to do the following:
- Navigate web browsers on their Chromebooks
- Navigate available tools within games such as the settings, difficulty levels, hint boxes, points, etc.
- Type answers to math equations in textboxes within game settings
- Manipulate regular and mixed fractions (add, subtract, multiply, and divide)
- Manipulate multi-digit decimal numbers
Learning Styles:
My students appear to learn best from collaborative and investigative activities. Using technology allows them to dig into concepts that they do not understand through activities like WebQuests and games. Having collaborative activities allows the students to satisfy their social needs while learning from each others' ideas. The majority of my students are verbal/linguistic and visual/special according to Gardner's Theory of Intelligences. The students are also working at this age on developing their interpersonal skills. With the development of these skills, the students often have anxiety about speaking alone in front of their peers. This is why collaboration is imperative as it allows them to talk with each other in a lower stress environment. They succeed at group projects and presentations and seem to enjoy demonstrating their work in these manors. Their main sensory gateways are kinesthetic and visual which means that they enjoy being physically engaged in activities and might learn best through a virtual reality exercise.
According to Gregore's Mind Styles Model, my students fall into either the concrete random or abstract random. Some of the students that are less mature need to physically test ideas out in order to understand concepts, while others are able think more abstractly. With this combination of learners I have found it to be useful to let students do hands-on activities after or during my instruction so that both levels of learners are supported. Some physiological factors that are influencing my students is the widening differences between girls and boys and the comingling of the two. The boys are often more rowdy and show off for their peers of the opposite sex. The girls are split halfway between being quiet and studious and being loud and showing off for the boys. In addition, the main instructional time of the day is all in the morning. The students have ELA, snack, math, and social studies in a row before having recess and lunch. As a result, the students often have trouble focusing in math because they have just had some free time to talk with their friends. To counteract these factors, I try to give students very focused activities during the beginning of math so that they stay engaged and get back into the mindset of work.
According to Gregore's Mind Styles Model, my students fall into either the concrete random or abstract random. Some of the students that are less mature need to physically test ideas out in order to understand concepts, while others are able think more abstractly. With this combination of learners I have found it to be useful to let students do hands-on activities after or during my instruction so that both levels of learners are supported. Some physiological factors that are influencing my students is the widening differences between girls and boys and the comingling of the two. The boys are often more rowdy and show off for their peers of the opposite sex. The girls are split halfway between being quiet and studious and being loud and showing off for the boys. In addition, the main instructional time of the day is all in the morning. The students have ELA, snack, math, and social studies in a row before having recess and lunch. As a result, the students often have trouble focusing in math because they have just had some free time to talk with their friends. To counteract these factors, I try to give students very focused activities during the beginning of math so that they stay engaged and get back into the mindset of work.