MY PLN JOURNEY

Creating a screencast was more fun and simple as I thought. Although I may not have gone with making it super creative, I like that it allowed me to be honest about what I thought. I will definitely keep this in mind for future projects. 

Action Research Conference 2013!!!

At the AR conference I attended the School Counseling Action Research Project Showcase and Learning and Teaching Showcase. Both were amazing and interesting in their own way. At the first presentation, I had the opportunity to hear from three ladies who were obtaining their masters degree in counseling. In hearing them present, I couldn’t help but to be overjoyed that they got to work with topics that are of high interest to me: women empowerment, body image, and goal setting. The fact that they brought them to the school setting is great. Schools sometimes get caught up with academics, which are important, that the student as a person gets left behind. What these ladies did was amazing in that they used the students interest and feelings to connect to their studies. The second presentation I went to had a focus on mathematics. I personally found this interesting since I wanted to see if I could take anything from their research and apply to my own. In the end, I ended up taking notes on what I could do in my future classroom and teaching tips in general.

One of the things that surprised me in both presentations was how it was more of a simplified explanation of their research and findings. In all presentations, I saw a common outline for everyone’s presentations. For example, context, literature, research question, phase 1 and findings, phase 2 and findings, legitimacy, new knowledge, and reflection. However, although it looked like a common outline each presenter said different things for each topic. The one thing I did leave wondering from each presentation was what was the survey and needs assessment they gave their students. In other words, what was it that made them realize the themes or conclusions? 

As a presenter I overall felt relaxed going into the conference. I had prepared before hand and knew my progress so far very well. I definitely felt over prepared for my presentation. Also, since I am only at phase one I didn’t have many things to remember as those who were presenting their entire action research. One of the things that worked and didn’t work was that the person who came to talk to me about my research was a friend I met last semester. It was good in the fact that he felt comfortable I asking me in depth questions about my research. For example, why did I chose to do a pedogocial approach rather than a motivation approach, what where the theories that guided my AR, and how is it that I am planning on comparing my three phases? I found this helpful in that it helped me further develop my reasoning/justification for my AR and what to include in my slides for next time. It wasn’t as great to have him for my AR presentation, in that I didn’t get to talk to other about my AR. We had a great conversation but I would have also liked to hear form others. Overall, this presentation experience was amazing. I felt the adrenaline of having to present. I got new ideas about what to do for my next phases and literature I could include in my AR.

STAR Review

Today in class the students were doing a Star test review activity. We had the students in groups of 3-4 students for a total of 6 groups . Then we handed each group a question from a released Star test, without the multiple choice answers. The questions were ones that they were unfamiliar with or had not yet learned the content. The purpose in doing this was to have the students force themselves to estimate and think of how they would approach this problem. They were given 2.5 minutes to think on their own and then 4-5 minutes to discuss it with their group members. This was done for all 6 problems.

As I walked around to monitor student work I couldn't help but to notice how the students found it hard to estimate. They weren't comfortable with "guessing" (as they called it). They knew there was an exact answer but weren't confident in their work. They wanted me to check it and tell them that they wer on the right path. For example, one common question/comment I got was "are we going to get the answers for the problem" and "are we going to go over them". Another thing I noticed as I was monitoring was that for some these problems were "easy". I asked why that was and their comments were that they learned it last year but didn't remember it well enough to be certain of their answer.

At the end we had the students reflect on the following 2 questions:
What did it feel like to encounter an unfamiliar problem on your own ad not be able to talk about it?
How did you respond?

In talking about these questions with the class, many felt frustrated or annoyed at the fact they couldn't get help form their peers right away. Especially when some of them had "small" check in questions. However, they realized that like the Star test they had to do it on their own first, thus, it made them feel like they were taking the real test. Another comment that came out of this conversation was "test taking strategies". That we can use the given multiple choice questions to "guess and check". This then lead the conversation to realizing that the test makers sometimes put in answers to trick them. For example, there might be two answers that work but only one of them fits the scenario of the problem. Overall, personally, this activity went very well. The students were engaged in the problems and were collaborating at the appropriate time. Although I did have to remind them to force themselves to work alone for 2.5 minutes. I will definitely do this again when I have my own class.

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.