AR Update #2

Its been almost two weeks that I started my AR on "How to strengthen mathematical understanding by encouraging student written reflection on mathematic?" As stated in my previous post, the students are writing blogs to reflect on their mathematical understanding. However, after implementing their suggestion of giving them prompts or extension questions to write about, I am still getting the same students to turn in their blog. In getting these results I went to my faculty advisor help. In talking to her, I realized the students may just want a different way to reflect. So for my second phase I will be looking on implementing Digital story telling to reflect on mathematics. I am still thinking about the details of how I will implement it but I am looking forward to it and hope that the students will enjoy doing doing it. In addition, for my third phase I am interested in having the students keep their own mathematics journal. They would keep all their work here and write their processes/steps/logic they took to solve the problem. In the end, I am thinking I will compare each form of reflection: blogging, digital story telling, and journal. I will be looking for which form of reflection allows for students to show their mathematical understanding. How and what I will compare is still the one thing I am working on. My AR keeps on changing and although that's a little nerve wrecking, I feel good that I at least have a plan of action....more details of AR to come.  

AR Update

I have started to collect data for the first phase of my AR and I can honestly say I feel a bit overwhelmed. I know my AR question, "How can encouraging student written reflection on mathematics strengthen students mathematical understanding?",  but now that I actually have the data, I am scared that when looking at it I may miss something or that it is not enough to "answer" my AR question. In other words, even after reading this The Power of Questions chapter on Data Analysis, I am still a bit nervous at how I look at my data. I would hope that this is a normal feeling for all first time AR students. 

However, I will admit that after reading this chapter I did walk away with a few ideas. One of the new ideas I will implement is taking notes of my data.  Since I am reading student reflections on mathematics, I am thinking some themes may come up on the extent of their reflections. One adjustment I will attempt to do is play with my data. The reason for this is that (like I said previously) I am scared that the data I collect will not give me any “answers” to my AR question. I would rather start on having more to "things" to write about than analysis a few things. (my feelings might change once I actually sit down with my data).

Overall I think I am just anxious to see if my data reveal anything about my AR question. I guess its a matter of just sitting down with it and truly analyzing it. 

Alone--Day 1

As I continue my student teaching experience, I can definitely say I am getting more confortable leading the class. However, today as I was teaching I felt so much more relaxed and confident. I could say it was because I prepared really well and I new the lesson in and out but that would not be an honest response. The fact is that my cooperating teacher was out for the day (he's actually going to be out for 3 days). Being in an intense 1 year masters credential program, I feel I am always being looked at under a microscope. So the fact that today I was on my own, took some of that "pressure" off. Dont get me wrong I completely understand and appreciate the feedback I get from my supervisor, advisors, and cooperating teachers. It just felt good to know what it may be like when I have my own class and I have to make all the decisions on my own. With that said...today went fairly well. In all three classes we got through the material/activity. I guess I could say my goals for the lesson/students were met. Now, for the next 2 days....I hope that my planning and confidence makes for another "good" day for the students and myself.

blogs in math?!?!

Currently I am in the process of starting my action research. After two months of student teaching, my students have shown difficulty providing strong written reflections on their weekly blogs. In these blogs they are to reflect on 7 habits of a mathematician: create a rule (generalize), conjecture and test, be systematic and organized, solve simpler and related problems, justify and support, look for patterns and regularity, be confident and persistent, experiment and play. More specifically, they are to reflect on how they used one or more of these habits in the class activities or in any other setting. These habits of a mathematician are not used in any other classroom. At the beginning of the school year the students held a class discussion on what they taught it meant to be a mathematician. Together, with the teachers help, they came up with these 7 habits and have been using them since the start of the fall semester.

By "strong" I mean that their quality of writing is at different levels. Also the effort students were putting into them varied. Some wrote thorough reflections on how they acted like a mathematician but other did the bare minimum with one or two sentences. In addition, of the 74 students about 28-33 of them are actually turning one in. The turn in rate of these blogs was definitely something that stood out to me and made me curious as to why all of this was happening. 

To address this need, I conducted a discussion in which the students reflected on the following two questions: What is the purpose of the blog? How has the blog influenced your learning? The intension for these questions was to see if the students knew why they were writing these blogs on a weekly basis. Some of the responses the students said to the first question were: "to show that we learned", "for you to check in on our understanding", and only one person said"to reflect of the habits of a mathematician". In response to the second question many began by saying that it was beneficial. Some statements were "yes because I realize I really do know the material", "I understand the problem better", and "I think deeper about the problem". However, when I asked if everyone felt this way some people said no. So I then began to ask why. Their general feelings were that doing a blog on the same questions every week felt repetitive and wanted to try something new. The question of “what can make writing the blogs a more meaningful experience?” became crucial to the conversation as many expressed that they would like to have a variety of prompts to write about. Some wanted open ended problems, some just wanted more than one option to write about, and some wanted questions related to what we were working on that week. All there responses have really made me rethink my action research approach and feel like I am back at step one....developing a main question and subquestions.

Slow Start....PLN

Developing my PLN has definitely been a challenge for me. I consider myself knowledgeable about how to use Blogger, Twitter, Diggo, etc . However, I can not say I use them to its fullest potential. In my PLN I mainly use Twitter, Blogger, Weebly, and Pintrest, In terms of blogging, I am still trying to get used to the idea of putting my thoughts and opinions out in cyberspace. I consider myself a “quiet” person and prefer face to face conversations/discussions. Thus, expressing myself in writing and waiting for people to comment makes me a little nervous. Though its been tough I believe that to cultivate this part of my PLN I will blog about my Action Research process. Hopefully this will be easier (and less stressful) than it sounds. 

In terms of Twitter and Pintrest, I can say I check them on a daily basis. I mainly use them as resources for both my professional and personal life. When using Twitter, I have identified certain people and organization I like to follow. Now all I need to do is to actually tweet things out.  Similarly, Pintrest gives me ideas of things I would like to try in my own. I have definitely gotten good at searching and repining things I want to look into. Slowly my boards have grown and can say that Pintrest is my favorite so far.