H-T-A-M

My student teaching will take place in an Ohio 3rd grade elementary classroom.

I couldn't be happier, however; I am also slightly terrified at the idea of teaching any subject matter outside of Language Arts...

Social Studies

Science

Math

That's a lot of subjects.  

So I better get my practice and understanding of those areas started now in order to get a leg up.

I've chosen to take a closer look at mathematics for this reason/unit.

The Ohio Department of Education's website offers a full scope insight into the math standards for its school systems.

Here is the overview for 3rd grade math:

Within math (and in all subjects) I will need to ensure the my students are accomplishing state required goals and standards.  Through the process of backwards mapping I will be able to determine and design a plan of action that will ensure that the best laid plan has been created to aide my students in this endeavor.

Taking a closer look at an Ohio 3rd grade math standard - developing understanding of multiplication and division and strategies for multiplication and division within 100 - I can begin practicing how to design a unit plan using this approach.

Step one ~ look at the standards

Step two ~ determine assessments

Step three ~ plan activities

Standards:

Proficiencies:

1. Students will develop an understanding of the meanings of multiplication and division of whole numbers through activities and problems involving equal-sized groups, array, and area models; multiplication is finding an unknown product, and division is finding an unknown factor in these situations.  For equal-sized group situations, division can require finding the unknown number of groups or the unknown group size.
2. Students use properties of operations to calculate products of whole numbers, using increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties to solve multiplication and division problems involving single-digit factors. 
3. By comparing a variety of solution strategies, students learn the relationship between multiplication and division. 

Assessments:

1. Complete full sets of multiplication and division tables
2. Successfully reach the correct answer of word problems
3. Self-assessment through timed practice 

Activities:

1. Once students have developed their core understanding of numerical relations through additional and subtraction within 100, they can move on to developing a core understanding of multiplication and division using drill practices like table charts.

2. Teacher holds up a number and students must present a set of numbers that can be multiplied or divided to produce the number the teacher has indicated.

3. Having established a strong foundation of multiplication and division within 100, students could use that understanding to extract information from a word problem to find the desired total.

Through backwards mapping I would be able to use these elements to design, carry out, and assess the knowledge gained by each student to ensure that they were meeting the State's standards and goals.