Reys Chapters 4 & 10, Vaughn Ch. 15

Reys: Ch. 4
    
"Assessment of Learning" and  "Assessment for Learning"

These phrases from Rey's chapter four really stood out to me because although students will be assessed by the state on their performance it is important to make sure that as teachers we are assessing our students so they can improve on their skills.  The four phases for the classroom assessment process that the book describes are : planning, gathering, interpreting, and using. These phases will be really helpful because in order to know what we need to teach our students we need to see where they are at. We need to see who understands fractions or place value and who has trouble with it. First, the teacher needs to plan what he or she would test and how he or she would test the students. Then the teacher would interpret the information he/she gathered from the test or task he/ she planned.  With the teacher's interpretation of the gathered information of the student;s math abilities the teacher can now plan another lesson or activity.

Reys: Ch. 10

Focus Question # 2: What are some myths and facts about using calculators?

   While reading Rey's chapter 10 some myths I came across where: using calculators do not require thinking, using calculators lowers mathematical achievement, and using calculators always makes computations faster. From personal experience I can say all of these are myths because I've used calculators that I've had to read the manual several times just to change the mode and its wasted me a lot of time. However, I am not against calculators because I am a firm believer in checking your work and using a calculator is such a great tool for checking your work. As for facts I read that sometimes it is faster to compute mentally rather than use a calculator and that calculators do not do all the thinking themselves it requires work from the student. These facts are true because I've seen it several times when younger students I've tutored have tried using a calculator to do a simple addition problem. At first I tell them I know they can do it without the calculator and they insist. They take quite a while just to figure out where the numbers are and the signs that I help them, but in the condition that they will not use the calculator because they agree that using the calculator takes longer.

Vaughn Ch. 15
  

Focus Question #3 What can you do to prepare lessons that engage all students?

To engage all students the teacher should consider all the students needs and be able to plan lesson where the class can participate as a whole, group, or even pairs. Teachers have to see whether the students need extra assistance and where they need extra assistance. A great example that Vaughn's chapter 15 provides is the use of graphic organizers or concept maps. Concept maps can involve participation from the whole class and it can be a fun engaging way to raise questions and investigate if what was written on the concept map was correct or not. Concept maps can also be used for any subject from language arts to science to history and so on.