Welcome to my summer book study on Guided Math in Action. I really hope you have a great time studying this book with me over the course of the summer and learn a lot about how to implement and use Guided Math in your classroom.
Today I will be covering Chapter 1: Guided Math An Introduction. I've created some fun visuals that highlight what I think are the most important details of the chapter and will include a freebie I've created that supports the content in the Chapter!
Chapter 1 provides a general overview to what Guided Math is and how it works in the classroom. The chapter opens with an overview of a Guided Math Lesson in Action and describes each part.
The author describes how a typical guided math lesson would work, including that it would take place at a kidney shape table in a leveled group.
The first part of the guided math lesson is the Introduction. The Introduction is the part of the lesson where the mini lesson is housed as well as guided practice time. It is key to the teacher to tap into prior knowledge of the students, so you can really grab the students attention and bring them into the new lesson being presented. It is also important at this time to make sure the students have a pretty clear understanding on the important vocabulary, so they can describe their thinking in math language. The teacher then present the topic for the lesson and model as the students are following along. After the initial modeling, the teacher will prompt the students and have them describe what they should be doing and modeling.
The second part of the guided math lesson is the Student Work Period. This is the time of the lesson where the students work on problems by themselves, or they can work in pairs. It is to give them a chance to have some independent practice after the guided, but still while they are sitting and can be supported by the teacher. It gives the teacher time to check in with each student, take anecdotal records and ask the students questions. During this time each student has two problems that they need to solve (I do this by giving each student two different problems so they can't copy off each other). When they finish, they share the problems they solved with the group.
The final part of the guided lesson is the Share period. This is a very crucial part of the lesson. It is a time for the teacher to facilitate more discussion about the math concepts, strategies and ideas that have been worked on and to clear up any confusions the students might have. At the end of the Share period, the teacher will give directions about the center work, as well as differentiated homework that is specific to the group she is working with. Once everyone in the group may ask some questions to wrap up the lesson.
Once the lesson is over, the teacher may choose to watch the students work at center, take anecdotal records for students she selected that day, or have math interviews with students.
The second half of the chapter focuses on the Beliefs about Teaching and Learning Mathematics That Frame Guided Math.
To support planning a guided math lesson with all of the needed parts, I have made a free resource for my readers that supports Chapter 1. For Chapter 1 I created a lesson plan template for a Guided Math lesson. The lesson plan template comes in both a PDF and a editable power point version. The template can be found at the following link.
Each chapter provides a few reflection questions that have you think about what you are already doing in the classroom and how you can work towards doing what the chapter says. I'll post the reflection questions here and then tonight at 8 PM EST I'll be on Facebook Live at my business page reflecting on the chapter and answering these reflection questions.
1. Currently, do all the students in your class feel that they can learn math?
2. What do you do with the students who are frustrated?
3. Does everyone participate in mathematical conversations? Who does, how, and under what terms?
4. How do you promote perseverance in your classroom?
Here is the schedule for when I will be posting the rest of the summer. I have moved my book study day to Wednesday, instead of Fridays. Also please note there will be no post next week. I will be on vacation and will pick up after that!
