Nov 15th, 2023

EDG611
Hoiming Lee

Assignment #4 – Intervisitation Observation Report

While reflecting on the lesson(s) observed, consider the following questions:

• What is the big idea of the lesson? How does the lesson fit into the big idea of the
unit?

The lesson observation was conducted on the first Wednesday of November. The
class I visited was a sophomore computer science class. Before the visitation, the
class teacher shared his instructional materials with me.

The big idea of the lesson was how information is stored on a computer in binary and
seamlessly translated into what is seen on the screen or heard through speakers. The
big idea was stated in the teacher’s lesson plan. According to the lesson plan, students
would be able to manipulate conversion between binary and decimal number systems
at the end of the lesson.

In a digital computing system, information is represented in binary. The perception of

computer users, including visual images, audio, tactile motion, and texts, is eventually
transformed into sequences of binary digits. The lesson focused on decimal numbers,
which are the most common number systems used in our daily lives. The decimal
number system is one form of information representation, and it is integrated into the
big picture of information as a whole. Learning binary to decimal number conversion
is the first step to learning how information is represented. Other forms of based
number conversions are applied in information representation, such as hexadecimal,
which would not be covered in this lesson. After students get familiar with the binary-
to-decimal conversion in this lesson, students are well-positioned to learn other
advanced forms of information representation, such as sound and images. The lesson
fits the big idea and serves as the springboard to learn deeper concepts in the big idea.

• What is “the hook”?

At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher instructed students to write down the date
of their birthdays on a piece of paper, and the number should be between 1 and 31.
Every student knows their birthday and quickly engages in the activity. Here comes
the hook! Then, the teacher said ‘what is the other way you can represent your
birthday?”. Class started to heat up with a lot of discussion among students. Some
students suggest using two objects to represent the date. The first object is one of ten
fruits. The second object is one of the vegetables. A student came out to draw an
orange and an eggplant on the whiteboard, which means 2 and 4; his birthday is 24.
The teacher used the birthday from students’ background knowledge to activate
students’ motivation to explore other ways of information representation.

• How does the teacher engage students in learning?

The teacher motivated students to discuss information representation by adopting

students’ social-cultural literacy, an example of a birthday in the lesson. The DoNow
started the lesson by bringing students to refocus on class learning from the previous
class transition routine.
Also, the teacher encouraged students to name their choices of information
representation. These activities connect to students’ daily social-cultural activities. A
student used durian as a fruit to represent the decimal digit 8. The class learning
atmosphere is heated up.

After the DoNow, the teacher used one minute to go through today’s agenda, and the
aim of today’s learning is decimal to binary conversion.
The teacher asked a student to read an essential question on the smart board: ‘How
information is represented if there are only two digits instead of 10 digits.”

The teacher used 10 minutes to deliver a mini-lesson on decimal to binary-conversion.

The teacher gave every student a worksheet. The worksheet lists the steps to solve the
number conversion problems. The teacher used Smartboard to model how to solve the
first problem, and he instructed students to finish the worksheet in the next five
minutes.

I observed that every student worked on their worksheet with no communication with
each other. When the five minutes were up, the teacher could call a student to explain
their answer to the second question. The student needed to do the conversion
correctly; the teacher showed a slide of the solution and asked students to compare the
correct and incorrect answers.
There were three questions to be answered on the worksheet. The three cold-called
students did not give the correct solution; the teacher used solution slides in response
to the students’ incorrectness.

I observed the classroom behavior was in order, but I did not see students
communicate with each other. Students answered the teacher’s questions only when
the teacher asked the students questions.

• How does the teacher address possible misconceptions?

All the incorrect solutions responded to by students shared a standard error: the
carryover. Students demonstrated the knowledge of adding single decimal digits and
the carryover. But they made a mistake in adding two binary digits and the carryover.
The teacher just reviewed another example to demonstrate the correct steps to correct
conversion.
The teacher spotted another misconception from the students’ worksheets. When
given two binary numbers with different digits, students did not know how to proceed
with solving the problem. The teacher raised an example as 11011 - 1000. These two
binary numbers were different lengths, but students did not know how to pack zero at
the front of a shorter number. The teacher shared his computer screen with the class
and modeled how to pack zeros into the shorter binary number.

• How does the teacher differentiate the lesson?

The teacher either modeled with example questions or students solved the problem
individually. The lesson instructional strategy was focused on a homogeneous group
of students. I don't see evidence of instructional differentiation in the lesson.

• What are students actually doing? What is the nature of students’ work? Are
students solving problems using a guided strategy or engaged in rich problem solving
where no particular method is required?

Students either listened to the teacher’s explanation of the model solution or followed
the teacher’s instructions to solve problems on worksheets individually. It was
assumed that students were well-disciplined and on task in learning. I don’t know if
there were SWD students who required accommodation; there was no evidence that
the lesson was designed for diversity. Although students followed instructions to do
the work, most could not arrive at the correct solution and needed a teacher to show
solution slides for every question. It was not sure whether students learned the
misconception after seeing the solution slides. There were no guiding questions;
instead, the worksheet provided step-by-step solving of a problem. I wonder if
students could solve a problem when no guiding steps were provided. It seems that
students need to remember the steps to solve a problem successfully.

• How does the teacher assess the students? How does the teacher know that the
students are learning?

The teacher assessed students by individual student completion of in-class worksheets

and students' responses to the teacher's questions. I noticed that when students gave
the incorrect answer, the teacher gave the solution directly instead of letting students
explore the problem.
I also noticed that the teacher needed to collect student's worksheets. Even though the
teacher assessed students' understanding by cold calling students to explain their
solution, the students' responses did not support the evidence that the incorrectness
was due to procedural fluency or conceptual understanding. It seems a general
conclusion that students' answer was incorrect.
• How does the teacher manage students’ behavior and transitions between different
parts of the lesson?

I observed that when the teacher asked to solve the problem individually, students
waited for the teacher to handle our worksheet. The class norm was very quiet; no
student acted out or heads down. A classroom norm was established and was strictly
enforced. I also noticed that when the teacher announced an exit ticket for students to
finish before class ended, students knew where to complete the exit ticket with little
supervision. Before the bell rang, students were seen staying in their seats with their
school bags packed.
I noticed that there were no student requests to the bathroom. I don't know whether
bathroom break was discouraged or whether students have no physiological natural
need.
When the bell rang, students left their seats individually according to their seat
numbers.

• If you observe the same lesson with two different groups of students, reflect on what
differences you notice. Does the teacher change the flow of the lesson and the way the
material is presented?

I only observed the teacher one time. The same teacher would deliver the lesson
differently if he came to my class. My class has several ADHD students who can stay
on task for no more than five minutes. And several students in my class frequently
request bathroom breaks. If the observed teacher came to teach my class, he would
assign small group work instead of students working individually because it is a
challenge for my students to stay focused for a long time. Small group activities help
students interact and collaboratively learn from each other.

• What would you do differently if you were to teach the same lesson (topic)?

Assuming teaching the same lesson of decimal to binary conversion, I would group
students of no more than four students in a group, telling them the task for them is to
design a set of manipulatives to represent digits. I will begin the lesson by showing a
short film on the history of numbers to connect to students’ previous knowledge of
how ancient people traded goods with each other. The short film will also introduce
Maya culture and the use of numbers in the Maya age.

Then, I will provide each small group with a short passage describing how decimal
numbers exist everywhere and how binary exist everywhere. Then, each group will
summarize and present the concept of binary and decimal numbers that exist
everywhere in our lives.

After students engage in the small group activity, they are motivated to solve more
challenging problems by solving conversion problems. I will provide an anchor chart
on the mechanism of binary-to-decimal conversion. Each small group will discuss
what elements they find from the anchor charts and prepare to deliver a short lesson to
the class. Examples of numbers are available, such as bus numbers, phone numbers,
or the current clock time. The student chooses to select a number to be represented in
decimal and binary.

Before the group presentation, I model how each group should participate by asking
questions critically. For example, I will model questioning by asking what if three
digits are used, what would it look like?

The goal is to provoke deep thinking and an exploratory learning attitude instead of
rote memorization of the conversion mechanism.

In the end, instead of asking the student to do another decimal to binary conversion in
the exit ticket, I will restructure the question by asking the student to describe what it
looks like if every sort of our life is expressed, displayed, spoken, and written in
binary number system instead of decimal system.