Author: Mathew Needleman  Date Created: 8/7/2003 6:27:24 PM PST
Collections: Graphing
Grade/Level: 1
Students: 20 students. 10 boys. 10 girls. 16 ELL students. 1 student mild autism.
Subject Area(s): Mathematics
Concept(s): Graphing is a means of visually recording data collected.
State Academic Content Standard(s): CA- CCTC: Aligned CSTP's and TPE's • Standard : CSTP: Standard for Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning TPE: E. Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning CSTP Description: Teachers create physical environments that engage all students in purposeful learning activities and encourage constructive interactions among students. Teachers maintain safe learning environments in which all students are treated fairly and respectfully as they assume responsibility for themselves and one another. Teachers encourage all students to participate in making decisions and in working independently and collaboratively. Expectations for student behavior are established early, clearly understood, and consistently maintained. Teachers make effective use of instructional time as they implement class procedures and routines. • CSTP Key Element : Planning and implementing classroom procedures and routines that support student learning.  Question : develop classroom procedures and routines that promote and maintain a climate of fairness and respect? CA- CCTC: CSTP's (Standards for the Teaching Profession) • Standard : Standard for Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning Teachers exhibit strong working knowledge of subject matter and student development. Teachers organize curriculum to facilitate students? understanding of the central themes, concepts, and skills in the subject area. Teachers interrelate ideas and information within and across curricular areas to extend students? understanding. Teachers use their knowledge of student development, subject matter, instructional resources and teaching strategies to make subject matter accessible to all students. • CSTP Key Element : Developing student understanding through instructional strategies that are appropriate to the subject matter.  Question: "How do I?" or "Why do I?" : develop and use a repertoire of instructional strategies well suited to teaching a particular subject matter? CA- California K-12 Academic Content Standards • Subject : Mathematics • Grade : Grade One By the end of grade one, students understand and use the concept of ones and tens in the place value number system. Students add and subtract small numbers with ease. They measure with simple units and locate objects in space. They describe data and analyze and solve simple problems. • Area : Statistics, Data Analysis, and Probability • Sub-Strand 1.0: Students organize, represent, and compare data by category on simple graphs and charts:  Standard 1.2: Represent and compare data (e.g., largest, smallest, most often, least often) by using pictures, bar graphs, tally charts, and picture graphs.
Objective(s): After conducting a survey of classmates, students will record the data they collect on a simple graph with ninety-percent accuracy.
Prerequisite Background Skills/ Knowledge: This may be students' first experience with graphing so it is important to explain what graphing is by creating one graph as a whole class.
Vocabulary/Language Skills: Graphs, graphing, more, and less. Students will learn what graphing is by having it modeled and come to understand more and less by seeing the concepts presented visually on the graphs.
Materials: Graphing worksheet Overhead graphing worksheet
Classroom Management: Students will be reminded of appropriate group work volume and the two fingers up signal which means to stop working.
Models of Instruction: Direct Instruction
Procedure
Open: Ask a few students to name some objects that they collect at home. List these on the board. Then do a quick tally of all students to find out which of those chosen is their favorite. Discuss the tallied results with students. Ask which item is biggest and least favorite. Now tell students that you are going to show them a new way of recording such information so that it can be more easily read.
Input: Take the data on the board and graph this on the overhead projector, one piece of data at a time so that students can see the one to one correspondence between each tally mark and one square on the graph. Now discuss the data and point out to students that the graph is perhaps more quickly read than the tally marks.
Guided Practice: On a separate day, have students assist you in completing a graph on their favorite TV shows on the overhead. Have students come up and fill in their own square on the overhead graph.
Independent Practice: Students will have their own graph paper and will complete a graph of other students' favorite colors. Students will need to walk around the room, ask each other what their favorite color is, and then record that information on the graph.
Close: Have each student look at his or her graph and discuss overall results. Does the class have a favorite color? A least favorite color? Is it easier reading graph information than a bunch of numbers? Why?
Assessment/ Reflection
Assessment: After student graphs are completed, teacher will examine them to see that students have graphed the results of their favorite color survey with ninety-percent accuracy.
Reflection: I believe this activity was successful even though many student graphs did not make sense. The student graphs did not make sense because many students polled some of their classmates over and over and over again. Therefore, many of the graphs show that I have fifty-six plus students in my class. This is because students could not remember who they had asked and are lacking a one-to-one correspondence. I will address this problem in a future lesson where students can actually place the objects they are graphing on the graph. However, I do not think that this made the lesson a failure. Regardless of the data collected, we were able to discuss the graphs in terms of favorites and least favorites. Students also learned to read the graphs and how they start from the bottom and are filled in upwards.