Clip 18/29: Day 2: Decimal Lesson Part C

Overview

Erika Isomura’s 5th-grade students continue to work in pairs to classify, sort, and glue down decimal representations in numerical order. Students discuss the reasonableness of their results with their partner prior to gluing down their cards. Erika connects pairs with each other to have them share their thinking, discussion, and results (“Why did you put this card here?” “Are both of these answers possible?” “What do you think of their idea? Does it make sense?”)

Teacher Commentary

I felt like that was a place to step in and just say this is the way it works. It's not a choice here. Multiplication, yes we have choices, addition we have choices, subtracting, no, it goes in a particular order. Division, no, you have to go in a particular order.

I'm not really good at saying, "Here are the rules, you must follow them." They know that, so when I come down and say, "These are the rules that you must follow," it's a little bit tricky because that's not how I teach. When I say that they're kind of like, "Really, are you sure because ….”

Even though I said it, I didn't feel like they were convinced, so I wanted to talk them through it. Also because I knew that if they could get that and really make sure that their understanding of division worked, then the big idea was that important idea, [that] the small divided by large equals a fraction.