Teaching is like Clock Work!

mariabecht
Mar 8, 2018
2 min read

Recently in math I taught the below standard:

MAFS.2.MD.3.7 Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes.

As suggested in Principles and Standards, I aimed to have my instruction emphasize the development of “concepts of time and the ways it is measured,” rather than learning just to tell time. I involved my students in time by first asking why we need to tell time and what is the importance of time (and in all different ways like minutes, hours, days). I then connected time to the real world and gave the students problems that connected to their lives, like waking up for school and going to bed at night. In Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally, the author writes about the importance of connecting math to the real world (Van de Walle, 2013).

After introducing time, I gave my students clocks to use and practice telling time with. Van De Walle, in the above text, writes to give student concrete experiences in math. This help will them conceptualize the math. My students loved the hands on learning with the mini clocks and were able to practice telling time with them. These clocks engaged the students in the lesson and let them gain experience rotating the minute hand around the clock one FULL time to make an hour- which led them to the understanding that an hour is 60 minutes.

I gave buddy learners to my students who were not understanding how the mini clocks worked. Buddy learners, like stated in Classrooms That Work, is a peer learning teaching method that I use to provide support to students who are not understanding the concepts yet. Buddy learners help model and guide the students.

I devoted whole group time to provide direct instruction, as I saw students having misconceptions about the hour and minute hand. In a previous homework, where an extension question on time was asked, a lot of students did not understand the difference of the hour and minute hand. Like stated in Assessment is Essential, the author writes to point out misconceptions to the class and to give redirection and opportunity for correction in their learning. I used the big clock to to help me do so.

I involved movements with telling times and had the students use their arms to act out what a clock did. We also practiced telling time to the hour and half hour with our arms! I had my students make a clock in their notebook to help them build an understanding on how we tell them to the 5 minutes with the below clock. For the minute hand you can skip count by fives, starting at the 12, to tell the time.