Blog # 9

In my student teaching, I have been observing the classroom and taking notes as to how I would differentiate if this were my classroom. I am going to be teaching a unit on math and I have been coming up with various ideas on how to differentiate the lessons. My unit for math will be on time. The unit will include students learning time on the half hour and quarter hour, minutes and how they relate to clocks and time, elapsed time and using a calendar. To take this unit and differentiate the lesson I feel that the best option for this particular lesson would be to use cubing for the students. Cubing works well with many content areas including math. For the one cube I would place on the sides:

1. A problem involving elapsed time for the students to solve.
2. Analyze how this problem helps us use mathematical thinking and problem solving.
3. Use comparison and contrast with time; for example compare 1:15 and a quarter after 1.
4. Use demonstration to how a person uses time in real life situations
5. Change the time involved in the problem and tell how the change affects the problem.
6. Have a story problem involving time.

One the second cube:

1. Have students write digital time into analog time
2. Have students write the minutes on a blank clock face
3. Have the student analyze time as to how long it would have them to do a particular task
4. Have students pair up cards that represent time
5. Have students contrast a.m. and p.m.
6. Have students write their daily schedule using time.

These cubes I would use for my lesson on time to the half hour and quarter hour. I would then create other cubes my remaining lessons in this unit on time.