ABSTRACT
Planning is the key to making the most of guided math lessons. The teacher must be sure to collect different data to decide what the point of intervention is. This data includes oral assessments, teacher observations, quizzes, tests, interviews, and conference notes. Based on the specific intervention and the plan of action, it is imperative to have all the necessary materials in the Teacher’s Toolkit to teach the concepts and skills. After collecting the data, the teacher must analyze, interpret, and decide on a plan of action. This is crucial. For instance, you might look at the math test data and decide that a certain group of children missed a certain type of question about patterns. Perhaps the students can identify patterns and extend them but have trouble describing them in written form. So you might then pull a guided math group based on this data and work intensively on this particular concept with those children. You make a plan, selecting a teaching activity that is at the instructional level of the children. For instance, you might plan to meet with this particular group three times and to present the information three different ways. The first meeting might focus on using manipulatives and building understanding at the concrete level. The second meeting might focus on using pictorial representations. The third meeting might focus on teaching the concept at the abstract level. You also write in your plan that you will create follow-up work for the center activities as well as include extra homework with a note to the caretakers about these students’ difficulty with this topic. The groups are flexible and based on the needs that the data shows. After you’ve done this planning, you are ready to meet with the group.
