My action research was to use the Keystone Math Method modified for my sixth graders. For my research, I read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Learning (2009) entitled "Demonstrating the Power of Group Math." The Illinois Professor of the Year and winner of other awards, M. Vali Siadat uses a technique he terms the Keystone Method. Students work in cooperative groups and then take a quick assessment after each lesson. Students “view the classroom as a learning community,” and “the group work also gets students deeply engaged in the subject matter.” I planned to start every class with a "test" to check understanding of the previous day's target or objective. Then, I introduced and taught a new objective. While the students were working independently, students who had difficulty on the "test" learned the concept in a new way from me, a YouTube video or a student tutor.
When students finished their work early, they could work on the ALEKS program, complete algebra party packets, play the game 24, play games related to their MAP RIT score or read. I also read an article “Gen Y: Who They are and How They Learn" (Black, 2010) describing key characteristics of students born between the years 1981 and 2001. Students in this group are savvy with technology and enjoy working together.
First, I implemented my plan for our Unit 7 Math Unit: Probability and Integers. During the unit I gave the students a "test" at the beginning of lessons on nine days. On three days, another adult corrected the pages, and I was able to follow up the same day with the few students who had difficulty. On one day, I could tell that so many students were having problems completing the assessment that I immediately retaught the lesson to all the students. On the other five days, students corrected their pages in class and asked questions if they had difficulties.
Student tutors, small groups and YouTube videos were used after we took reviews of previous material or when students had difficulty during independent work time. After the mini-tests, it was often too difficult to teach a new concept, give students time to work independently on the new concept AND catch up with students who had problems on the mini-test. Therefore, I implemented the use of small groups, student tutors and the YouTube videos after the first unit review.
A funny story occurred when five of my students were suppose to be watching ALL the YouTube videos on my teacherweb.com site. Unknown to the students, the second-to-last title was just a webpage instructing them to tell me a secret password. When the students returned from the computer lab, they assured me that they had watched all the videos, but only one of them could tell me the secret password. From then on, I had students watching the videos on the four laptops in class, and they never knew if there was a secret password on one of the videos, so they were always looking for one.
The student unit assessment results did not change much from the unit assessment I gave during my first action research project. There were still six students who scored below 80%. In addition, I wanted to use the Self-Assessment Page with Unit Standards in a more productive way. The Everyday Math Series has a page at the beginning of each unit test for students to self-assess themselves. I used the page to set up my standards-based gradebook, and students completed the page as they took the test. However, I wanted to have students use the page as a self-tracking device during the unit. For these two reasons, I decided to do another "quick" round of action research for Unit 8.
Post-Script - - Testing by standards allowed me to easily retest just the sections that students needed. I will continue to do this type of testing in the future. Students have more opportunities to master material. I think higher MAP scores as well as higher grades on report cards are a result.
No comments:
Post a Comment