Summary Of Mrs. Dooley's Four Step Problem Solving Model

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In the classroom I am observing, there are a few signs around the room, that relate to the standards. Mrs. Dooley, at Alma Middle School, has two large posters side by side, that have the Common Core Standards listed. Under each standard, there are at least eight to ten bullet points of examples of that standard. This poster is in the front of the room and easy to find. On the opposite side of the room, she has two standard size papers, that list the Common Core Standards for Mathematics and Science. Mrs. Dooley also has several posters on her walls that represent step by step problems, or situations in the mathematics world. She has a four step Problem Solving Model poster in her classroom that reads: Read It, Think It, Solve

In Mrs. Dooley’s 4th hour Pre-Algebra class, the students are going up to the smartboard one at a time to answer the questions presented. The students critique each other on their graph points or how to fill in the table correctly. Mrs. Dooley didn’t tell the students to critique one another, this just happened on its own. Each student who had the incorrect answer, had another student come to the board, and explain to him or her the correct answer. This action among the students is MP3. The structure of Mrs. Dooley’s classroom, is seven groups of four desks each. Therefore, in any group activity, the desks are already set up in groups of four. If a student has a question, they can ask their group first, before asking the teacher. While working on a worksheet about the area of a cone, the students couldn’t recall how to find the slant height. Mrs. Dooley told the students to talk among their peers; as I was observing, I could tell that some of the students knew there was a way to find it, but they couldn’t remember how to. One student said, “we know the length of two sides, and we need only one side”. Even though the students knew this fact, having it said out loud, helped them understand it better. The students began to cluster together and talk about the problem. Then one student said, “Pythagoras”. The students could use Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the missing

Dooley at Alma Middle School was the first teacher I asked some questions about the Common Core Standards. She has had training about the practices and acknowledges them greatly. She doesn’t specifically quote the standards in class, because the eighth graders just want the material, but she does adjust the lesson to contain the practices either intentionally or by coincidence. She knows the importance of the practices and incorporates the real-life situations, group work, and correctly using manipulatives and vocabulary in each lesson. The second teacher I asked some questions to, is Mrs. Boster at Alma Middle School. Mrs. Boster has a poster of the practices in her classroom, and she tries to convey the strategies into her lessons. She teaches a math remediation class and attending to precision and finding shortcuts in the material is key to helping these students. She knows the practices and has had training about them. The third teacher I interviewed, was Mrs. Wasko from Mountainburg High School. Mrs. Wasko thinks that the practices are useful in the classroom and are helpful guides of what she wants the students to be able to do. When I asked Mrs. Wasko if she used the practices to guide her lessons or just the state standards, she said, “they do help me plan out my lessons and when I intentionally incorporate the practices, the students end up doing the practices. When I don’t intentionally try to insert the practices, they still end up happening I the lesson”. I