Sorry for the corny title. I have marriage on my mind a lot these days...Let me go ahead and apologize about my previous blog post. I work at a charter school were anything other than direct instruction is forbidden. If I implemented writing in my classroom, it would be very likely that I'd be pulled in by the Dean of Academics and told how writign in math class was a waste of time. As Head of the Math department, I've wittnessed this first hand. I don't mean demote my school's policy, in a lot of ways I agree with it. I believe Direct Instruction is the most effective way to teach students who are behind grade level (as are 99% of my students). As a direct result of this believe, I belive writing should only be implemented in a math class if it is done to be productive--not done just to be done. With all this being said, post-TCAP, I managed to sneak in a bit of writing , which was incorporated into a math lab on qualitative data.
a) I spent Monday and Tuesday having my students complete a math lab on qualitative data.
Day One: The students were put into groups of two. They chose their topic (favorite pizza topping, favorite soft drink, favorite NBA team, etc.) Each group created 5 categories for their topic. For example, if I chose "Favorite Pizza Topping", my categories might be: Pepperoni, Cheese, Sausage, Supreme, and Hawaiian. The students then surveyed 20 of their classmates and recorded their data in a table. The students completed a worksheet of 12 questions regarding their data. Questions mostly covered percents, ratios and proportions. For example, one question was, "What percent of students chose Category 1?". The last two questions are were the writing comes in! I had students write (in complete sentences, of course!) what their sample population was and whether or not their sample was bias.
Day Two (tomorrow): The students will calculate percents to make a circle graph. Students will assign each of their 5 categories a color, make a cooresponding key, and shade in the appropriate percent, using the appropriate color, on the circle graph. I provided them with a circle graph, which was divided into 100 pieces-- which is why they are calculating percents first!
b) I had students complete a math lab for two reasons. The first reason being that I had math labs as part of my Big Goal that I created before the school year started. I wanted students to complete 6 math labs relating to the 6 main areas of study (Whole Numbers/Decimals, Fractions, Algebra, Percents/Ratios/Proportions, Geometry, Data Analysis) in order to reinforce a conceptual understanding. The second reason I had students complete a math lab dealt with their inability to grasp the concept of "bias". "Sample Bias" was introduced late in the year, during TCAP crunch time. (During the weeks preceding TCAP, it is always crunch time!) There were a hand full of objectives I had not taught yet--sample bias being one of them. I had noticed that students were struggling with determining whether or not a sample was bias. I thought doing a math lab covering data analysis would help to reinforce students conceptual understanding by giving them a concrete, real-world example of collecting data.
c) See (a)
d) I learn that some studnets do not have a strong enough math background to benefit from inquiry. At my school we group based on grade level. It was intersting to notice the differences between cohorts' execution of the math lab. My lowest group of students had to be walked through the steps. The benefitted little. I do not believe their conceptual understanding was enhanced at all, because they have such a poor concept of numbers to begin with. On the other hand, the higher cohorts enjoyed the project. They were able to make the computations without much prompting. Hopefully their understanding of Data Analysis was enhanced by the project.
e) Next week, I plan on doing a very similiar math lab using quanitative data. I'm going to have students gather quantitative data and use it to calculate mean, median, mode and range. I think this will give them a wide perspective on what people use data for.
Whitney, I love your project idea! What a great and intensive way to incorporate writing into your curriculum. Its especially effective because students will not view the writing as a main objective and thus may not be so intimidated by the writing aspect of the project. I agree that certain implementations in the math classroom will not benefit students who are too far behind conceptually; however, it is important that we as teachers implement as many innovative ideas as possible in order to enhance the learning experience for our students. Great job!
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