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Teaching Place Value in Elementary Mathematics to First Grade During a Global Pandemic – Reimagining COVID

Annwyn Long

The COVID - 19 virus has changed the landscape of elementary level mathematics instruction. For each of the challenges the virus has brought, it has generated a plethora of creative teaching ideas and allowed educators to encounter teachable mo ments. In the context of this paper, “ COVID ” has been appropriated and now stands for: C aring for children and the community O nce - daily lesson V ivacious (meaning active, lively, and ani mated) teaching I ndependent in - home learning and D irect instruction with asynchronous video recording. With this acronym in mind, COVID has made ed ucators move onto online platforms that can be used when teaching mathematics. This article fo cuses on how a first grade team transitioned into online teaching, particularly concentrating on place value. The first grade team planned and de livered asynchronous and synchronous lessons that specifically taught the Virginia Standards of Learning SOL 1.2 related to place value.

C: Caring For Children And The Community In COVID

The C in COVID refers to the community involve ment and teamwork that the school and the parents built to ensure that the children were achieving their educational potential. During the COVID - 19 quarantine, the community involvement in their children ’ s education has been pivotal and laid a solid foundation for the children ’ s mathematical learning. The Education Endowment Foundation report of 2019 states that “ Parental engagement in children ’ s learning is associated with improved academic outcomes at all ages ” (Axford et al., 2019). Parents, teachers and the school communi ties have all worked together to find a way to navi gate through this challenging time. The school be came an even more integral part of the communi ty, and the county made sure that the children had access to the needed technology. Teachers reached out to their students ’ parents through email, text, phone calls and even through social media.

Social distancing actually brought us closer to gether as a family, and the math dialog that took

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 47, no. 1

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