What Are They Thinking?
Concept foundational to unit: Jobs/Money
Documenting student thinking:
Student #1:
Q: “Have you ever heard people use the word job?”
A: “Like a job to go work at a store.”
Q: “Yes, do you know any other jobs?”
A: “Work at a play place, or work at the library like my daddy does. I know a lot of jobs. A job to be a boss at a gym, to be a reporter for a newspaper. I know a zookeeper job.”
Q: “Why do people do jobs?”
A: “It’s important so you can get money to save to stay in your home.”
Documenting student thinking:
Student #1:
Q: “Have you ever heard people use the word job?”
A: “Like a job to go work at a store.”
Q: “Yes, do you know any other jobs?”
A: “Work at a play place, or work at the library like my daddy does. I know a lot of jobs. A job to be a boss at a gym, to be a reporter for a newspaper. I know a zookeeper job.”
Q: “Why do people do jobs?”
A: “It’s important so you can get money to save to stay in your home.”
Student #2:
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: No response
Q: “Can you name some jobs?”
A: “Pocket chart. Work at a store, work at a ice cream shop.”
Q: “Why do you think people have jobs, or why do you think adults do work?”
A: “So they can get more money to buy stuff.”
Q: “What do you know about money? No response so rephrased, “Have you ever used money before?”
A: “I buyed a doll with my nine dollars.”
Q: “Why do you think people need money?”
A: “So you can buy stuff.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you tell me about your drawing please?”
A: “My mom working at a store.”
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: No response
Q: “Can you name some jobs?”
A: “Pocket chart. Work at a store, work at a ice cream shop.”
Q: “Why do you think people have jobs, or why do you think adults do work?”
A: “So they can get more money to buy stuff.”
Q: “What do you know about money? No response so rephrased, “Have you ever used money before?”
A: “I buyed a doll with my nine dollars.”
Q: “Why do you think people need money?”
A: “So you can buy stuff.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you tell me about your drawing please?”
A: “My mom working at a store.”
Student #3:
Q: “Can you describe any jobs?”
A: “Work from home.”
Q: “Why do you think people have jobs?”
A: “Because have to learn office work.”
Q: “Why do you think people need money?”
A: “Get their jobs. Buy some stuff.”
Student #4:
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: “Work, you’re working.”
Q: “Can you name some jobs that people might have?”
A: “Working hard. Go to school. If you get a job you work hard.”
Q: “What types of work might people do?”
A: “Fixing the kitchen, stacking the chairs, lining up.”
Q: “Why do you think people have jobs?”
A: “When their teachers tell them to get a job they work.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you please tell me about your drawing?”
A: “I’m drawing a birthday cake. She’s working here. This is her factory. She’s grabbing a birthday cake for someone’s birthday.”
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: “Work, you’re working.”
Q: “Can you name some jobs that people might have?”
A: “Working hard. Go to school. If you get a job you work hard.”
Q: “What types of work might people do?”
A: “Fixing the kitchen, stacking the chairs, lining up.”
Q: “Why do you think people have jobs?”
A: “When their teachers tell them to get a job they work.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you please tell me about your drawing?”
A: “I’m drawing a birthday cake. She’s working here. This is her factory. She’s grabbing a birthday cake for someone’s birthday.”
Student #5:
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: “You do work. And you have to work with kids.”
Q: “Can you name some jobs that people might have?”
A: “Like office work, work from home.”
Q: “Do you know why people have jobs?”
A: “Because they need to have money. Because they need to buy some things.”
Student #6:
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: “Cleaning the floor, making food, playing with children, taking them outside to their friends. Lots of things people have to do for kids.”
Q: “What do you know about money?”
A: “Dollars.”
Q: “Why do you think people need money?”
A: “To buy children toys. To buy computers, glasses.”
Q: “What do you use money for?”
A: “Buying a fan or bed.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you tell me about your drawing please?”
A: “It was raining and he got a rope and he got his hand and he ran. And 3 cars were racing and that is all.”
Q: “What do you know about jobs?”
A: “Cleaning the floor, making food, playing with children, taking them outside to their friends. Lots of things people have to do for kids.”
Q: “What do you know about money?”
A: “Dollars.”
Q: “Why do you think people need money?”
A: “To buy children toys. To buy computers, glasses.”
Q: “What do you use money for?”
A: “Buying a fan or bed.”
Drawing prompt: Draw whatever you think of when you think of adults doing work or going to a job.
Q: “Can you tell me about your drawing please?”
A: “It was raining and he got a rope and he got his hand and he ran. And 3 cars were racing and that is all.”
Reflection:
The process of initiating conversations with students to see what they already knew about the interrelated concepts of jobs and money was a very enlightening experience that served to better inform my future instruction. As a teacher, it is essential that you are constantly trying to elicit student thinking in order to gauge their level of understanding. For the purposes of my unit lesson plans, I wanted to find out what kindergarten students associated with the topics of jobs and money, so as to best support them in meeting the learning objectives for Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) K.6[1], and K.7[2]. After asking six students a range of questions on these subjects, I came away with some very valuable realizations.
Foremost, I learned a great deal about how students define and describe jobs from the first half of each interview. When asking students questions such as what they knew about jobs, and prompting them to name types of jobs, I received a number of answers which I inserted into the online tool called Wordle. Wordle creates a visual display of words from text provided by the user, in which they structure the words according to their frequency within the text, so that the most recurring words are more pronounced. After inserting key words about the students’ associations with jobs, the following visual display was generated:
Based on the results expressed above, I recognized that the majority of students described jobs in terms of settings and tasks, rather than positions. (The only positions that were mentioned, such as “zookeeper” and “reporter”, came from one child, Student #1.) The words most commonly used among the students were “store”, “home”, “kids”, and “office”, inferring that when students thought about jobs, they referred to activities adults do inside the home with them, or outside the home at generalized locations. It was very interesting to note that Student #4 was the only child not to think about jobs in terms of adults, and instead discussed the responsibilities children have at school such as “stacking the chairs” and “lining up”. Synthesizing this information for my unit planning, it becomes apparent that the students are already capable of thinking about jobs in correlation with the places they occur and the work they require. Yet, the children will need support in linking the term “job” to positions and roles that are then described by the attributes of location and tasks as outlined by the SOLs. As a result, employing the concept of “community helpers” may provide the scaffolding students need in understanding jobs as different occupations in a community.
The process of initiating conversations with students to see what they already knew about the interrelated concepts of jobs and money was a very enlightening experience that served to better inform my future instruction. As a teacher, it is essential that you are constantly trying to elicit student thinking in order to gauge their level of understanding. For the purposes of my unit lesson plans, I wanted to find out what kindergarten students associated with the topics of jobs and money, so as to best support them in meeting the learning objectives for Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) K.6[1], and K.7[2]. After asking six students a range of questions on these subjects, I came away with some very valuable realizations.
Foremost, I learned a great deal about how students define and describe jobs from the first half of each interview. When asking students questions such as what they knew about jobs, and prompting them to name types of jobs, I received a number of answers which I inserted into the online tool called Wordle. Wordle creates a visual display of words from text provided by the user, in which they structure the words according to their frequency within the text, so that the most recurring words are more pronounced. After inserting key words about the students’ associations with jobs, the following visual display was generated:
Based on the results expressed above, I recognized that the majority of students described jobs in terms of settings and tasks, rather than positions. (The only positions that were mentioned, such as “zookeeper” and “reporter”, came from one child, Student #1.) The words most commonly used among the students were “store”, “home”, “kids”, and “office”, inferring that when students thought about jobs, they referred to activities adults do inside the home with them, or outside the home at generalized locations. It was very interesting to note that Student #4 was the only child not to think about jobs in terms of adults, and instead discussed the responsibilities children have at school such as “stacking the chairs” and “lining up”. Synthesizing this information for my unit planning, it becomes apparent that the students are already capable of thinking about jobs in correlation with the places they occur and the work they require. Yet, the children will need support in linking the term “job” to positions and roles that are then described by the attributes of location and tasks as outlined by the SOLs. As a result, employing the concept of “community helpers” may provide the scaffolding students need in understanding jobs as different occupations in a community.
During the second half of the student interviews, I discovered how students perceived money and the way in which they connected this concept to the previous one of jobs. Again, Wordle became the vehicle for creating a visual understanding of students’ answers, and the image below is made up of the key words from students’ responses to the question of why they think people have jobs.
It can first be noticed that most students correlated the purpose of working at job to obtaining money. In three out of five of the interviews, children made the connection between jobs and money before the term “money” was introduced into the questioning. In the other two cases, Student #3 reasoned that people have jobs in order to “learn office work”, and Student #4 believed individuals take on jobs after being instructed to do so by the teacher. Discussing money with the students also gave insight into how they think people use their money. Many students mentioned buying “things” or “stuff” or an assortment of other items like “toys” and “computers”, yet Student #1 talked about saving money to “stay in your home”. Comparing students’ replies with SOL K.7, it becomes very helpful to know that the children already have a good foundational understanding of people working to earn money to buy the things they want. Consequently, I can then tailor my unit to spend more time on the first part of that SOL which goes into the choices people must make because they cannot have everything they want.
Overall, starting dialogues with students to get a sense of what they are thinking will prevent teachers from speculating about what children know, and instead help them to determine the most appropriate course of instruction, especially when addressing controversial issues. I have learned with this process that just like differentiating your instruction, you must also provide multiple avenues for students to share their thinking when pre-assessessing. For example, Student #4’s drawing portrays ideas about jobs that are different than those recorded during our conversation. The child first approached jobs from the perspective of classroom responsibilities, while in comparison, her drawing contains a person working in a “factory… grabbing a birthday cake”, thus taking on the angle of adult work with regards to location and tasks. The student’s variation in thinking could have occurred due to the shift in method from a one-on-one conversation to creating artwork, or as a result of the context of the question being that I introduce the word “adult” into the drawing prompt. Either way, I have a more complete sense of Student #4’s comprehension due to the inclusion of the drawing prompt. Finally, with our economy having gone through dramatic changes in the past couple of years, viewpoints on jobs and money have become quite personal and polarized in some cases, and therefore can be considered controversial. Student #1’s response of having a job so that “you can get money to save to stay in your home”, could reflect a home situation where the focus is more on basic necessities rather than wants like toys. The student interviews then allow you to become aware of such circumstances and sensitivities, enabling the teacher to adjust instruction accordingly when teaching concepts that could be controversial.
[1] VA SOL K.6: The student will match simple descriptions of work that people do with the names of those jobs.
[2] VA SOL K.7: The student will
a) recognize that people make choices because they cannot have everything they want;
b) explain that people work to earn money to buy the things they want.
It can first be noticed that most students correlated the purpose of working at job to obtaining money. In three out of five of the interviews, children made the connection between jobs and money before the term “money” was introduced into the questioning. In the other two cases, Student #3 reasoned that people have jobs in order to “learn office work”, and Student #4 believed individuals take on jobs after being instructed to do so by the teacher. Discussing money with the students also gave insight into how they think people use their money. Many students mentioned buying “things” or “stuff” or an assortment of other items like “toys” and “computers”, yet Student #1 talked about saving money to “stay in your home”. Comparing students’ replies with SOL K.7, it becomes very helpful to know that the children already have a good foundational understanding of people working to earn money to buy the things they want. Consequently, I can then tailor my unit to spend more time on the first part of that SOL which goes into the choices people must make because they cannot have everything they want.
Overall, starting dialogues with students to get a sense of what they are thinking will prevent teachers from speculating about what children know, and instead help them to determine the most appropriate course of instruction, especially when addressing controversial issues. I have learned with this process that just like differentiating your instruction, you must also provide multiple avenues for students to share their thinking when pre-assessessing. For example, Student #4’s drawing portrays ideas about jobs that are different than those recorded during our conversation. The child first approached jobs from the perspective of classroom responsibilities, while in comparison, her drawing contains a person working in a “factory… grabbing a birthday cake”, thus taking on the angle of adult work with regards to location and tasks. The student’s variation in thinking could have occurred due to the shift in method from a one-on-one conversation to creating artwork, or as a result of the context of the question being that I introduce the word “adult” into the drawing prompt. Either way, I have a more complete sense of Student #4’s comprehension due to the inclusion of the drawing prompt. Finally, with our economy having gone through dramatic changes in the past couple of years, viewpoints on jobs and money have become quite personal and polarized in some cases, and therefore can be considered controversial. Student #1’s response of having a job so that “you can get money to save to stay in your home”, could reflect a home situation where the focus is more on basic necessities rather than wants like toys. The student interviews then allow you to become aware of such circumstances and sensitivities, enabling the teacher to adjust instruction accordingly when teaching concepts that could be controversial.
[1] VA SOL K.6: The student will match simple descriptions of work that people do with the names of those jobs.
[2] VA SOL K.7: The student will
a) recognize that people make choices because they cannot have everything they want;
b) explain that people work to earn money to buy the things they want.