TASK 1

DESCRIPTION

These three lesson were assigned to middle school students in grade 7 at Woodside Intermediate School 125.

The central focus of the learning segment was to deepen students’ understanding of operations with both positive and negative rational numbers by discovering rules for multiplying and dividing signed rational numbers and solving verbal problems in real-life applications.

For the first lesson, I taught the students to multiply signed rational numbers. The second lesson built on the first lesson, where I taught the students to divide signed rational numbers. The third lesson built on these prior lessons, I taught the students to apply four operations with rational numbers to solve a real-life problem.

The purpose of the content came from the Common Core State Standards that was designed for students to extend and deepen their conceptual understanding, mathematical reasoning, and procedural fluency of four operations with both positive and negative rational numbers. In addition, the purpose of the content was to establish a foundation for students’ future learning, not only in mathematics (i.e. Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and higher math classes), but also in other contents, such as Physics and Finance. The content of operations with rational numbers also helped students solve real-life problems, such as comparing food prices.