Blog Assignment: Learning from a Project “Post-Mortem.”

Recently I was asked to put together a lesson plan that an administrator would evaluate on an un-scheduled visit.  So they conveyed to me that it would be during the first week of September.  Since I was a veteran teacher in this district, but a new teacher at this particular school, I was one of the first teachers to be evaluated.  So I planned a unit covering place value, since that is one of the biggest standards for a teacher to cover in second grade.  So I started with concrete concepts first, where students manipulated objects to understand hundreds, tens and ones.  After teaching with concrete objects I created lessons that were all pictorial.  So, when the administrator surprisingly came in on a half day, when all of my students were excited to go home at twelve, she walked through the door to observe math.  I felt like I was prepared and that my students were prepared as well, since they successfully completed my lessons over hundreds, tens and ones using concrete models.  I was shocked at how awful the lesson went and the level of confusion my students stressed throughout the lesson.  I was mortified and astonished at how many students that did not understand the next step in our unit over place value and my assumption that they were ready to move onto pictorial models.

As an educator I often have to modify and adjust my lessons to accommodate the learners in my classroom, which I feel project managers have to do throughout their project that they created for their stake holders.  Many PM’s have to develop objectives, analyze data and modify and adjust throughout the term of the project.  Many assumptions are made about the project, which the project manager is taking as fact while conceiving, planning, and performing a project (Portny, 2008, p. 43).  I made some assumptions when I developed and implemented the place value lesson with my students.  I assumed that they were ready to move on to that new lesson in the unit I designed, but when I observed the way they performed and realized they were not succeeding I had to make some major adjustments.  Overall, the post evaluation indicated that the students were not ready for that next stage and I had to reteach the concepts using concrete models again until I saw a better outcome from their assessments.  After the adjustments were made and I taught the concepts over again, I saw a huge gain in their scores and I felt relieved. 

 References:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.