How might incorporating differentiated math rotations impact the engagement and achievement of my 1st grade students during math?

Seminar Title

How might incorporating differentiated math rotations impact the engagement and achievement of my 1st grade students during math?

engagement, differentiation, and independence

1st Grade

Elementary

Mathematics

Reading

“I don’t know how to do this.” Have you heard this after teaching a lengthy math lesson and sending your students off to work independently? Do you find your students disengaged or off task during your math lesson? I am excited about my research because my students have become independent, engaged, and improved their understanding of math concepts. This has allowed me to work with small groups and support and enrich their learning. I believe my research is relevant to primary grade levels and could be adaptable to reading. My main concepts were independence and differentiation. If you are looking for an opportunity to engage your students in math and work with small groups to support all of your learners, this session is for you!

Rebecca Herubin Duluth Blended raheru16@smumn.edu How might incorporating differentiated math rotations impact the engagement and achievement of my 1st grade students during math? The question guiding my research is as follows: How might incorporating differentiated math rotations impact the engagement and achievement of my 1st grade students during math? A review of literature led me to a variety of ideas to differentiate math to keep my students engaged and achieving. Through researching ways to improve independent work time I found some common areas for improvement. Those areas were classroom management, schedules and routines, differentiation, and structures of math. Much of the research around classroom management and schedules aligned with the structures of my classroom. This led me to focus on differentiation and structures of math. Within structures of math, I researched math workshop, station rotations, and guided math. I felt math rotations fit my sensed need and would allow me to differentiate my math as needed and provide independent and engaging work time for my students. To implement math stations with differentiation I had to explicitly teach, model, and allow time for practicing math rotations. I chose to keep the rotations the same, and the content changed as the curriculum did. The stations were teacher, independent, partner and math writing. For data collection I used pre-assessments, post-assessments, observations, quick quizzes, and student surveys. I used the assessments to track and show growth and observations to track engagement and on task. Overall after analyzing my data, my students understanding of math content improved with each math unit. During my observations I saw students engaged, on task, and completing their work. While students were rotating through centers I was able to work with small groups to support and enrich their math understanding. I plan to continue using rotations during my math block.