My final decision about my action research project topic was based both on the results from my student surveys and interviews and on what I was learning as a student myself in the MAT program. The MAT program's focus was on social justice and multiculturalism. I decided to search the existing scholarly research that combined both social justice and mathematics in education. What I found was very exciting. I found that teachers had used social justice based mathematics projects and examples to engage their students in mathematics and that some of these researchers had found that their students' academic achievement as well as their engagement in mathematics had increased. I was very excited by this connection and decided that I would design my own social justice based mathematics program and implement it with my students. I also decided that my program would include well structured group work and work on the computer and would use the text very little. In this way I would be incorporating my students' preferences, as shown in the surveys and interviews I conducted, into a new and engaging mathematics program.
My first step was to design a program that met all of the criteria mentioned above:
- Social justice issue based
- Group work based
- Computer/technology based
Now I knew where I was going with my research and felt like I had a viable plan for creating a program that would truly engage my students in learning mathematics. I felt that it was likely that if I were to engage students I would also increase their academic achievement in mathematics. This was a very exciting time in my research because I had a road map; I knew where I was going and how to get there. Eureka!
Photo Note: The photo is a view of the doorway to my classroom during the 2007-2008 school year.
6 comments:
Lothy, do you think you would have been able to write your own program and implement it if you were working on a pacing calendar and had specific curriculum to use? I think what you have done is awesome. It is what many teachers use to do when we could use create curriculum units. I am a bit of a rebel, so I still implement many things that I feel are good for the students. I am wondering if one could do what you did while using mandated curriculum. What do you think?
No, I really don't think that my project would have been possible in a different, more restrictive teaching context. I was very lucky to have a principal who is all for throwing out the book-in fact that is what she advocates most. Specific curriculum and pacing calendars would make what I did very challenging. I think that if you were using mandated curriculum you would have to squeeze in the type of curriculum I created and it could not be the focus as it was for me. It would depend on what curriculum you were using, some may be more flexible than others. Thanks for the great and very relevant question.
Monica, I agree that this incredible approach to mathematics education would be challenging in a more "regular" classroom environment. However, I am very interested in your results, and specific group projects that I could implement to supplement the curriculum I am mandated to teach. I know that any type of math project that connects the concepts to concrete experiences engages students. Any why not have these projects also teach social justice.
Lothy, I like that you start your blog by stating some facts about the context of your teaching, because it is such a unique situation that you are in. I would suggest if possible to increase your font size a little bit so the blog is more readable. Sounds like you are well on your way to project completion!
Kim, I just changed my font size (and some other things). Is it more readable now, or less? I'm not sure where I ended up after all my changes.
I'm so glad that you are putting so much weight into what your student surveys have suggested. You can really increase the "buy-in" when students feel that they are in charge.
Some may feel that this is a lot of effort to completely rewrite your math curriculum. It's worth will be in your results. If it is successful, then it will be an invaluable resource for future years. Even if the results are not favorable, you will have no doubt learned valuable lessons and be able to piece together at least some differentiation techniques that can be used in your classroom.
Dave,
Spoiler alert-it worked, my results show that both engagement and academic performance in math increased after implementing my social justice based mathematics units. Yea! However, my sample size was ridiculously small so the statistical value of my results are very low. Thank goodness for context based qualitative research methods!
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