Project Description Final Draft

An Educational Need

As a Mathematics teacher, I am dually cursed and blessed with students that fail to understand the material, but are willing to go the extra mile to build an understanding. A large percentage of my ninth grade Algebra students come into the class without a strong foundation of Algebra and basic mathematics. This makes modeling new theories extremely difficult. Many of the students are constantly halted by their lack of a mathematics foundation, and others simply are slow to comprehend new concepts.

In order to offer these students further opportunities, my school district promotes an after school tutorial program. Around half the teachers participate after school, three days a week, for ninety minutes. This presents students with an opportunity to ask questions about their misunderstandings, and allows them to receive practice, in addition to the work assigned in class.

The tutorial program is a wonderful idea at heart; however it has become extremely inefficient. On certain days I am “tutoring” over twenty students. This allots me around four minutes per student, given that it takes time for administrative tasks. This is not enough time. Many of the students run into dead ends and are left waiting long periods of time for my assistance. Typically, the students complete their individual missing assignments, work on the homework, or are given additional problems for practice. I have attempted to run the tutoring sessions like a lecture or general discussion, yet this has failed due to the fact that the students often need help on completely different topics. Therefore, my problem of practice is that a potentially beneficial tutorial program has become extremely inefficient due to the fact that I am struggling to meet the diverse needs of the students.

There is so much to gain by making the tutorial program more efficient. If each student could hone in on his or her specific misunderstandings for ninety minutes several times a week, he or she would be able to overcome misunderstandings about current topics and would be able to strengthen his or her mathematics foundation. With students efficiently improving their mathematics skills after school, the pace of the class could be sped up, which would benefit the most proficient members of the class. Hopefully, I can find methods to improve the structure of these tutoring sessions, if I “focus first on classroom strategies, then on ways in which technology can enhance the lesson” (Brabec, 11).

Technology to Save the Day

Seeing that it is not feasible for me to efficiently aid all of the students that attend tutoring, turning to technology would be a very beneficial option. My solution to this dilemma is to elaborate on my classroom website so that the students can “help themselves” and help others construct a strong mathematical foundation through the use of school laptops. I plan to break down algebraic and arithmetic concepts into a multitude of lessons, which will enable students to focus on their specific misconceptions. Stand alone instructional resources will be at the heart of each of these lessons. This will allow students to receive instant feedback from the resources, rather than waiting lengthy periods of time for me to verify that they are correctly attacking a problem. Under these different lessons, I also plan to incorporate blogs, so that the students can post their questions about different concepts and can answer the qualms of others. Thus, my solution to the dilemma at hand is to place the opportunity of learning in the students’ court, by means of a rich classroom website with stand alone instructional resources and blogs that promote student collaboration. This approach should be of no cost to the school. Furthermore, it is more effective than teaching the entire class one lesson, since one lesson cannot meet all the diverse needs of the students, as stand alone resources have the ability to.

Research

I have researched the ideas of utilizing stand alone instructional resources and blogs in order to enhance the mathematic fundamentals of students. I have found resources that speak to the importance of mastering the fundamentals of mathematics…
-Study shows gap between high school, college expectations – ProQuest
-Math fundamentals- ProQuest

I have additionally found resources that discuss how to teach mathematics online (with wikis and stand alone instruction)…
-Figuring out how to teach maths online – Lexus Nexus
-Education: Do the maths: Technology/Comment/Resources: It's a numbers game: Computer games are just one way technology can transform potentially dry subjects into relevant and engaging experiences – Lexus Nexus
-Teaching math online (http://online.rit.edu/about/newsletter/one_article.cfm?which=70)
-Math Blogs - http://futureofmath.misterteacher.com/blogs.html)

Finally, I have stumbled upon several resources that possess online resources that could be posted on the classroom website in order to better explain select topics to students…
-http://www.visualmathlearning.com/
-http://www.math.com/
-http://www.heymath.com/index_row.jsp
- http://www.mangahigh.com/en_us/

The Plan

This is a rather extensive project that would consist of building online resources (blogs and stairs) for a plethora of different mathematics fundamentals. During this course I would like to focus on extending my classroom website to include lessons on the fundaments of solving equations, and the fundamental operations of integers. I hope to create stand alone resources and blogs for each topic. After this course, I hope to assess how these two lessons were received by the students, and proceed to create more fundamental lessons for the students.

The 4 Common Places of Education

To summarize; this project is centered on my teaching of the material through a classroom website, stand alone instructional resources, and blogs. This project is hinged upon teaching the material to ninth grade algebra students. The subject matter is mathematics fundamentals, namely the basic operations of integers and the basics of solving equations. The setting is after-school tutoring that meets three days times a week for ninety minutes per day.

Project Description Draft

What is the compelling problem of practice or opportunity for gain that you want to address in your project?

As a Mathematics teacher, I am dually cursed and blessed with students that fail to understand the material, but are willing to go the extra mile to build an understanding. A large percentage of my ninth grade Algebra students come into the class without a strong foundation of Algebra and basic mathematics. This makes modeling new theories extremely difficult. Many of the students are constantly halted by their lack of a mathematics foundation, and others simply are slow to comprehend new concepts.

In order to offer these students further opportunities, my school district promotes an after school tutorial program. Around half the teachers participate after school, three days a week, for ninety minutes. This presents students with an opportunity to ask questions about their misunderstandings, and allows them to receive practice, in addition to the work assigned in class.

The tutorial program is a wonderful idea at heart; however it has become extremely inefficient. On certain days I am “tutoring” over twenty students. This allots me around four minutes per student, given that it takes time for administrative tasks. This is not enough time. Many of the students run into dead ends and are left waiting long periods of time for my assistance. Typically, the students complete their individual missing assignments, work on the homework, or are given additional problems for practice. I have attempted to run the tutoring sessions like a lecture or general discussion, yet this has failed due to the fact that the students often need help on completely different topics. Therefore, my problem of practice is that a potentially beneficial tutorial program has become extremely inefficient due to the fact that I am struggling to meet the diverse needs of the students.

There is so much to gain by making the tutorial program more efficient. If each student could hone in on his or her specific misunderstandings for ninety minutes several times a week, he or she would be able to overcome misunderstandings about current topics and would be able to strengthen his or her mathematics foundation. With students efficiently improving their mathematics skills after school, the pace of the class could be sped up, which would benefit the most proficient members of the class. Hopefully, I can find methods to improve the structure of these tutoring sessions, if I “focus first on classroom strategies, then on ways in which technology can enhance the lesson” (Brabec, 11).

Bringing it all together

What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

This course has taught me a lot about utilizing effective strategies while integrating technologies. One of the things that has been engrained in my mind is that it is crucial to incorporate multiple teaching strategies whenever possible. Scaffolding, the inductive approach and the deductive approach are all methods that can aid select students. Using all in unison is very beneficial. This course has also stressed to me the importance of not creating a lesson with “change without difference”. Technology is wonderful, but must be incorporated with a specific intent and must alter learning in meaningful ways.

How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

Through the use of web based technologies, I was forced to consider the complications of using the internet. Are the forums and blogs that the students are using open to any internet browser? What is preventing students from finding incorrect information? With these qualms come large rewards. The internet is an endless amount of information that can aid students in their quest for understanding. If webquests and other web-based technologies are constructed carefully, students can reap large benefits.

How have you met your own personal goals for learning about technology integration? Do you have any new goals?

One of my personal goals entering into this course and the technology program was to gain an understanding of how to compile classroom material on the web. Although I already possessed a classroom website, there was insufficient space for me to upload detailed PowerPoints. This course demonstrated to me how to use the web space provided to Michigan State to create rich websites. CEP 811 also demonstrated how to construct stand-alone instructional devices. This is something I was hoping to learn about. Such teaching tools have the potential to really close the gap between the different learning levels in my classroom. There is still one lingering questions that I have leading into CEP 812. How do I go about creating a vodcast and podcast? Based on the value of using such technology, I have created a new goal for CEP 812. It is my goal to learn about requesting new technologies for my classroom and applying for grants.

What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

In order to reach my new goals after this course, I plan to complete the technology program. In order to reach my long term goal of keeping up to date with new educational technologies and keeping the classroom innovative, I plan to continue with my blog and RSS feeds.

Online Teaching and Learning

Talk about how you could use one of the technologies that qualify as an online experience with your students:

Several of the technologies that qualify as an online experience have already been implemented into my classroom. When teaching Social Studies I strongly support the use of webquests. I have already utilized the webquest that I created through this course and plan to create more in the future. By taking the students to the computer lab over the course of several days, they would be able to experience more educational freedom and time management as they prepare for college. Furthermore, students would have the opportunity to independently gain their own understandings about large themes Social Studies curriculum One other technology that struck me while reading the document was an electronic portfolio. I currently do not incorporate portfolios in the classroom, but would be open to doing so in the future. Having the students keep an educational portfolio of their best work would allow parents to see their students’ accomplishments and would allow the students to take higher level of pride in their work. Lastly, blogs would be a great tool, in that they would foster an online community of learners. I could periodically take students to the computer lab to respond to each other’s blogs. This would allow them to voice their own opinions, challenge the views of others respectfully.

What content could this help you teach?

Webquests would be effective in helping me teach any Social Studies topic that aims to educate students about critically analyzing their political beliefs or an event in time. The “guide on the side” nature of webquests is perfect in allowing the teacher to present information to the students and is excellent in allowing the students to take this information and form their own truths. Electronic portfolios would work for either Mathematics or Social Studies, my two content areas. The portfolio itself would not necessarily teach the content of the course, but would educate students on how to use technology for an educational and professional means. Finally, an educational blog is another online experience that I could imagine myself using in the future. Often times, my Algebra students are stuck on two different steps of an equation. By allowing them to communicate their understandings and misunderstandings publicly, they would to put their heads together and tackle problems together. Blogs could be inserted into Social Studies setting in order to have the students discuss opposing views on a specific topic.

What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students?

Webquests definitely incorporate scaffolding. By using webquests I would focus students on completing smaller tasks that when combined yield an outlook on a large theme. Blogs would best be used with an inductive approach, where an example (math problem, or event in history) is given and students must make sense out of the example (determine the theorem or rationale for the event).

What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why?

I do not think that any one particular technology would be extremely difficult to use with the exception of Learning Management Systems. Smaller technologies, such as blogs, and webquests, can take place over several sporadic visits to the computer lab. Learning Management Systems on the other hand require more constant dedication. With the lack of after school media center time and home computer access, I feel that my students would struggle to complete the tasks required to them. Therefore, I think that until classroom laptops become available or after school media center time is expanded I should not require hefty activity online. This would place select students at a major disadvantage and would not serve the purpose of having education as an equalizer.