Problem of Practice

The problem of practice that I am choosing to work on this semester is using a variety of teaching strategies in the classroom to teach math to the advantage of the students.  Whenever I chose to use manipulatives in the classroom, my students either start playing with them, or start throwing them around. I tend to lose a majority of the class's attention due to this. I have tried to have the students play with them before I have started using them for math this year, but that planned seemed to have back fired the most this year. I would love to be able to teach math not only with pencil and paper, but also with allowing the students to use different items to guide in their learning. I also feel as if this year in math, I am doing a lot of demonstrating to the class, but not getting as much participation from some students. I would like to have math be a time where a majority of my students are participating and engaged in the practice, rather than what it can be right now, with a majority of students playing with their shoes or distracted.

I work in an urban school that does not offer a lot of toys for the students to play with, and also does not have a lot of resources for them when it comes to math. We have different types of blocks, and colored frogs, but to the kindergarten students they are just toys that can be played with when brought out. I would love to have a variety of ways to invest them in math, and get them to understand how using different concepts help them move. My students come from working families and a lot of them have not attended a preschool program. I am the first school experience for most of my children.

One way I can learn more about issues and solutions is to observe and talk to a variety of other teachers on how they use techniques in the classroom to get students to understand the concepts. The best practice for teachers is to get opinions from others and develop their own way of working with a strategy that works for them. There are also articles to read about best practices in the classroom that may also give some ideas as to how to design my math time to be more beneficial.  I would also like to look at how classroom management and time of day could be effecting the issues I am having.