Other times, I pull out struggling students to provide practice on a particular
concept. The following lesson is an example of this latter type of guided math
instruction.
Introducing Doubling
The purpose of this lesson that took place in late October was to have students
understand what it means to double a number and what happens to a quantity
when you double it. We work on multiplication in third grade, so it is important
for students to see the connection between doubling and multiplying by two.
I shared the book Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong (1995) and we talked
for a few days about the magic pot (a pot that doubled whatever was put in it).
We posed questions based on what went in the pot and what came out. For ex-
ample: “Joseph put $6 in the magic pot. How much money did he get out the
pot?” “Susie received $18 out of the pot. How much money did she put in?”
I gave the class an assignment that included story problems about doubling,
based on the book. I had been observing the students who seemed less confident.
These students would hesitate when their turn arrived, knowing the pattern, but
still slightly unsure about what number they were going to say. When I gave stu-
dents the opportunity to choose partners to work on various math activities, I ob-
served which students chose someone who they felt would give them the answers
and which students actively participated and worked efficiently together. These
observations and my assessments of the story problems helped me choose a group
of five students that I needed to work with for additional guided instruction.
These students had difficulty understanding what was happening in the story
problems and what the question was asking. These students also had difficulty ap-
plying knowledge from one example to the next example. Each problem was like
a new experience. They tended to not want to “think” about math, just get
through it.
These five students did not see themselves as learners of mathematics.
Although they enjoyed some of our math activities, they have never felt very
successful in math and often got easily frustrated and shut down. They had dif-
ficulty explaining their thinking. Three out of the five really struggled with
writing, but all five were very verbal, so I hoped that by working with them in
a small group, I could draw on their verbal strengths and build their confidence.
Meeting in a small group allowed me to draw out their thinking through ques-
tioning and to encourage them to verbalize their strategies. It also allowed me
to use a lot of visuals and hands-on material in a guided way to demonstrate the
concept.
Double or Nothing