1/25/10 First Team Meeting
Participants: Susana Salamanca, Tom Taney, Rey Munoz, Abram Sanchez, Doug Lutz, and Linda Prendez
The main purposes of this meeting were
For members to meet each other (One team member comes from a different school, and Susana from NMSU attended the meeting)
To discuss a broad overview of what lesson study is and what the process looks like
To decide on a content strand for the lesson study goal based upon Picacho Middle School testing data (Number and Operations is our lowest content area) and curriculum
The math PLC at PMS is studying the Process Standard of Reasoning and Proof
We decided on the content standard of Data Analysis and Probability. We further decided to concentrate in the area of probability. The sixth grade teachers at PMS not normally get to the 6th grade probability book (How Likely Is It?) until after the NMSBA if at all. The 7th grade teachers do a two week mini-unit prior to the NMSBA. The 8th grade teachers don't even have a probability unit.
2/1/10 Second Team Meeting
Participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez, and Linda Prendez
The objectives of this meeting were
Decide on goal and rationale
Choose a lesson to teach with probability
Goals
Use probability to generate arguments, draw conclusions and make decisions (Strand: Data Analysis and Probability; Standard: Students will understand how to formulate questions, analyze data, and determine probabilities; Benchmark: Understand and apply basic concepts of probability; 7th and 8th grade Performance Objective #5)
More specifically for this lesson:
Students will use a probrability model (tree diagram, area model, list of possibilities, etc.) to reason through and justify the fairness of a game
Students will make connections between various probability models.
The lesson will reinforce a Number and Operation concept (odd and even products) learned in the sixth grade unit Prime Time
Rationale
We decided on the content standard of Data Analysis and Probability. We further decided to concentrate in the area of probability. The sixth grade teachers at PMS not normally get to the 6th grade probability book (How Likely Is It?) until after the NMSBA if at all. The 7th grade teachers do a two week mini-unit prior to the NMSBA. The 8th grade teachers don't even have a probability unit.
The team decided to use an existing lesson (Investigation 1, Problem 1.3) in the seventh grade book What Do You Expect?: Probability and Expected Value.
Comment from Susana
Tom and Doug, Can you say a little in your rationale about reasons, concerning your students, that led you to choose this goal? What do they have trouble with? what is it about your goals that they don't usually accomplish them? I mean besides the fact that sometimes you do not get to teach them. Is this subject in the state tests? How do they do there? What do they have most difficulty with?
I have some questions about your goals, What specific concepts of probability do you want them to use and understand by the end of the lesson? What kinds of connections are you thinking about?
Comment from Blake I would echo what Susana has said about the details of your goal. The goal that you have stated is so broad that it is difficult for me to have a good sense of what ideas the students will come to understand in your lesson. Do the students need to understand ideas of equally likely outcomes or ideas of when you can add probabilities and when you can multiply probabilities? I think that clarifying those kinds of details in your goal will help keep you focused as you develop your lesson.
Updated Goal(s) of lesson based upon Susana and Blake's Comments.
Students will use a probability model to test their conjecture through experiments using line plots and make inferences of theoretical outcomes with short answers to an open ended question.
Next team meeting:
Finalize Goal and begin the write up. We should have the final draft finished by this weekend. Prior to the meeting: what are the essential questions or the anticipated questions? What are our responses? Decide when/where the practice lesson is to be held, followed by revisions and refinement.
Susana's question: Are you meetig on Monday at usual time?
Perhaps you want to start putting in some of the other ideas (on the goal) that we kind of talked about at our last meeting and whatever has come up since then...I assume you guys already had another meeting with the whole team? Remember, you can use the Wiki as a working blackboard where we can all brainstorm. Don't let perfectionism get in the way. I am new in Wikiland but I see one strength of the Wiki in that things do not need to be perfect to be put in there... It is always a work in progress.
2/8/10 Third Team Meeting:
participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez, Linda Prendez, Doug Lutz
Goals for this meeting were
keep working on the goal of the lesson.
choose the activity for the lesson based upon the more specific goal
Accomplishments:
We narrowed our primary goal to having students understand the thoery of large numbers.
We chose to use the dice product game activity in problem 1.3 of the CMP book What do You Expect
We are still working on the final language of the goal, and we are still having alot of discussion about possibly changing the goal. Tom wants to include something about various representations of the theoretical probability in the goal. Doug still wants to bring in something about the process of coming up with a theoretical probability as part of the goal.
2/8/10 Doug and Tom meet with Susana:
Goal for this meeting:
Susana wanted to meet and discuss the progress of the Picacho Lesson Study Team
Accomplishments:
We came up with a representation of the process of coming up with a theoretical probability and decided to present it to the team at our next meeting. Doug and Tom want the team to include it in the goal of the lesson
2/22/10 Fourth Team Meeting:
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz
Goals:
Finalize the goal(s) of the lesson
Start talking about the flow of the lesson (essential questions, order in unit, etc.)
Accomplishments:
We wrote two goals
We started discussing the flow of the lesson
Our two Goals for the lesson are:
"Students will gain an understanding of the theory of large numbers" (with more and more trials, experimental probabilities approach theoretical probabilities)
"Students will improve their ability to use experimantal probability data to verify or change their predictions about a theoretical probability"
2/29/10 Training with Blake and Observing a Public and a Practice Lesson:
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz, Doug Lutz
Goals:
Participate in Training about Lesson Study
Observe a Public Lesson
Observe a Practice Lesson
Accomplishments:
We attented Lesson Study Training with Blake and observed a public and practice lesson
2/30/10 Training with Blake and De-Briefing the Public and Private Lessons from the prior day
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz, Doug Lutz
Goals:
Participate in Training about Lesson Study
De-Brief a Public Lesson
De-Brief a Practice Lesson
Accomplishments:
We attented Lesson Study Training with Blake and attended the de-briefing of yesterday's public and practice lessons.
We shared our lesson ideas with Blake and came up with another possible goal for our lesson "Students will gain an understanding that the possible outcomes (the denominator of a theoretical probability computation) must be equally likely"
We decided to teach the lesson over two days. The first day would be an introduction to the "Hypothesis-Experimental Probability-verify/change Hypothesis-Theoretical" Cycle, and the students would make an initial hypothesis/prediction about the fairness of the dice product game, and play the game 36 times. The second day would start off with students verifying or revising their predictions from the day before, deturmining a theoretical probability, and then looking the relationship between the theoretical probabilitiy and the experimantal probability as more experimantal trials are added.
3/8/10 Sixth Team Meeting
Participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez
Goals:
Write the lesson plan (not just the goals, but the flow of the lesson)
Accomplishments:
We wrote the initial lesson plan
It icluded all of the first column (teacher actions and flow of the lesson), but very little of the second column (our predictions of students actions during the lesson and the teacher's response to them)
Doug attached the plan to this wiki page the following day after I e-mailed it to him
3/10/10 Rey taught several practice lesson in his classes
Participants: (Teacher)Rey Munoz, (Observers) Linda Prendez, Susana Salamanca, Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez
Goals:
Teach and observe students learning and actions during the lesson to improve the lesson
Accomplishments:
Rey taught, and the others observed the lesson
3/15/10 Seventh Team Meeting
(Rey, Tom, Doug, Susana and Linda went over lesson plan after Rey taught practice lessons)
3/29/10 Eighth Team Meeting
(Rey, Tom Abran, and Linda made more changes on lesson plan (blue changes) based upon comparing lesson plan to what actually happened in practice lessons in Rey's class)
4/5/10 Practice lesson in Tom Taney's 3rd period class
4/5/10 Lesson Study Meeting
Attendance: Tom Taney, Rey Munoz, Linda Prendez, Doug Lutz
Discussion of 3rd period observation.
5/4/10 Comments from Blake
I am sorry that I haven't responded before now but even though I had been checking the wiki, I missed the updated lesson plans. I have looked over you lesson plan and I really don't have anything to offer. You have done a really nice job of anticipating student thinking and incorporating that thinking into the discussion part of the lesson. I am looking forward to seeing this lesson in action.
1/25/10 First Team Meeting
Participants: Susana Salamanca, Tom Taney, Rey Munoz, Abram Sanchez, Doug Lutz, and Linda Prendez
The main purposes of this meeting were
We decided on the content standard of Data Analysis and Probability. We further decided to concentrate in the area of probability. The sixth grade teachers at PMS not normally get to the 6th grade probability book (How Likely Is It?) until after the NMSBA if at all. The 7th grade teachers do a two week mini-unit prior to the NMSBA. The 8th grade teachers don't even have a probability unit.
2/1/10 Second Team Meeting
Participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez, and Linda Prendez
The objectives of this meeting were
- Decide on goal and rationale
- Choose a lesson to teach with probability
Goals- Use probability to generate arguments, draw conclusions and make decisions (Strand: Data Analysis and Probability; Standard: Students will understand how to formulate questions, analyze data, and determine probabilities; Benchmark: Understand and apply basic concepts of probability; 7th and 8th grade Performance Objective #5)
More specifically for this lesson:- Students will use a probrability model (tree diagram, area model, list of possibilities, etc.) to reason through and justify the fairness of a game
- Students will make connections between various probability models.
- The lesson will reinforce a Number and Operation concept (odd and even products) learned in the sixth grade unit Prime Time
RationaleWe decided on the content standard of Data Analysis and Probability. We further decided to concentrate in the area of probability. The sixth grade teachers at PMS not normally get to the 6th grade probability book (How Likely Is It?) until after the NMSBA if at all. The 7th grade teachers do a two week mini-unit prior to the NMSBA. The 8th grade teachers don't even have a probability unit.
The team decided to use an existing lesson (Investigation 1, Problem 1.3) in the seventh grade book What Do You Expect?: Probability and Expected Value.
Comment from Susana
Tom and Doug, Can you say a little in your rationale about reasons, concerning your students, that led you to choose this goal? What do they have trouble with? what is it about your goals that they don't usually accomplish them? I mean besides the fact that sometimes you do not get to teach them. Is this subject in the state tests? How do they do there? What do they have most difficulty with?
I have some questions about your goals, What specific concepts of probability do you want them to use and understand by the end of the lesson? What kinds of connections are you thinking about?
Comment from Blake
I would echo what Susana has said about the details of your goal. The goal that you have stated is so broad that it is difficult for me to have a good sense of what ideas the students will come to understand in your lesson. Do the students need to understand ideas of equally likely outcomes or ideas of when you can add probabilities and when you can multiply probabilities? I think that clarifying those kinds of details in your goal will help keep you focused as you develop your lesson.
Updated Goal(s) of lesson based upon Susana and Blake's Comments.
Students will use a probability model to test their conjecture through experiments using line plots and make inferences of theoretical outcomes with short answers to an open ended question.
Next team meeting:
Finalize Goal and begin the write up. We should have the final draft finished by this weekend. Prior to the meeting: what are the essential questions or the anticipated questions? What are our responses? Decide when/where the practice lesson is to be held, followed by revisions and refinement.
Susana's question: Are you meetig on Monday at usual time?
Perhaps you want to start putting in some of the other ideas (on the goal) that we kind of talked about at our last meeting and whatever has come up since then...I assume you guys already had another meeting with the whole team? Remember, you can use the Wiki as a working blackboard where we can all brainstorm. Don't let perfectionism get in the way. I am new in Wikiland but I see one strength of the Wiki in that things do not need to be perfect to be put in there... It is always a work in progress.
2/8/10 Third Team Meeting:
participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez, Linda Prendez, Doug Lutz
Goals for this meeting were
Accomplishments:
We are still working on the final language of the goal, and we are still having alot of discussion about possibly changing the goal. Tom wants to include something about various representations of the theoretical probability in the goal. Doug still wants to bring in something about the process of coming up with a theoretical probability as part of the goal.
2/8/10 Doug and Tom meet with Susana:
Goal for this meeting:
Accomplishments:
2/22/10 Fourth Team Meeting:
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz
Goals:
Accomplishments:
Our two Goals for the lesson are:
2/29/10 Training with Blake and Observing a Public and a Practice Lesson:
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz, Doug Lutz
Goals:
- Participate in Training about Lesson Study
- Observe a Public Lesson
- Observe a Practice Lesson
Accomplishments:2/30/10 Training with Blake and De-Briefing the Public and Private Lessons from the prior day
Participants: Tom Taney, Linda Prendez, Abram Sanchez, Rey Munoz, Doug Lutz
Goals:
Accomplishments:
3/8/10 Sixth Team Meeting
Participants: Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez
Goals:
Accomplishments:
3/10/10 Rey taught several practice lesson in his classes
Participants: (Teacher)Rey Munoz, (Observers) Linda Prendez, Susana Salamanca, Tom Taney, Abram Sanchez
Goals:
Accomplishments:
3/15/10 Seventh Team Meeting
(Rey, Tom, Doug, Susana and Linda went over lesson plan after Rey taught practice lessons)
3/29/10 Eighth Team Meeting
(Rey, Tom Abran, and Linda made more changes on lesson plan (blue changes) based upon comparing lesson plan to what actually happened in practice lessons in Rey's class)
4/5/10 Practice lesson in Tom Taney's 3rd period class
4/5/10 Lesson Study Meeting
Attendance: Tom Taney, Rey Munoz, Linda Prendez, Doug Lutz
Discussion of 3rd period observation.
5/4/10 Comments from Blake
I am sorry that I haven't responded before now but even though I had been checking the wiki, I missed the updated lesson plans. I have looked over you lesson plan and I really don't have anything to offer. You have done a really nice job of anticipating student thinking and incorporating that thinking into the discussion part of the lesson. I am looking forward to seeing this lesson in action.
Dougs Reflection: