Rusults Without Surprises

Photo: A student organizes her research on the War in Iraq

The data I collected via student surveys, student interview, student work samples, reflections, my teaching journal, parent surveys, and my professional development reflections revealed that my students were more engaged and more academically proficient in mathematics after the implementation of the two social justice based mathematics units described in earlier posts.

In short, the result of my study is that a Social Justice based mathematics program increases student engagement and achievement in mathematics.

These results were not surprising because it had always seemed obvious to me as a teacher that interesting real world based lessons, activities, and assignments would interest students more than traditional mathematics, which my students clearly did not care for. It also seemed very clear that if I could engage my students, they would learn the math and thus do better academically in mathematics. My results didn't surprise me because it just made sense that what I was doing would have a positive result for my students.

In future posts I will share some of my most interesting data. My students said some insightful things that I could not say better and I want to share them with you, my readers.

Data Collection Techniques

After implementing the two social justice mathematics units during spring 2008 I collected a great deal of data. As I was new to AR I didn't know exactly what would be most relevant so I collected everything I could think of.

To determine whether student's had become more engaged in mathematics I collected the following data:

• Post-survey
• Post-interviews (all students)
• Student work (math notebooks and final group projects)
• Student reflections
• My teaching journal
• My professional development reflections
  
• Parent surveys

To determine whether students were becoming more academically more proficient in mathematics I collected the following data:

• Spring 2008 CST results
• Student grades

In my next post I will talk about some of my most relevant results and the conclusions I was able to draw from them.

The Second Social Justice Based Mathematics Unit: The Iraq War

Photo 1: Map of the Middle East used in lesson during Iraq War unit



Photo 2: Me teaching during Iraq War unit

After completing the unit on immigration, which I promise to talk about more in a later post, I asked my students to brainstorm ideas for our next social justice based mathematics unit. First we talked about what social justice meant and then we did a brainstorm. After coming up with a list of viable ideas students did a blind vote to choose their focus area. They chose the War in Iraq.

My thoughts were that this was a huge topic but that I could guide them in any direction I wanted and that information was likely to be readily available. Once I knew the topic I started designing their group project. I set it up much like the first project on immigration and they had the same group roles that I shared in my last post. I made some changes to the structure for completion of the project. I laid out more specifics on what each student had to do to get their final project grade. I also considered the California state standards that I needed to cover before the end of the year and made plans for lessons to support the standards.

The final project that I asked students to complete in their small groups was as follows:

Overview of Project

1. Each group will conduct research and use mathematics to determine the costs of the War in Iraq, from both a monetary and a human perspective. Students will use mathematics (graphs, tables, ratios, percentages, etc.) to calculate and display the costs of war (both monetary and human). Groups should look at the costs from both the perspective of the Unites States and Iraq.
   
2. The groups will research, discuss, calculate and display the costs of the War in Iraq in comparison to other governmental costs (schools, healthcare, social security, etc.).
   
3. The groups must create their own budget for the United States. They should both show their budget in a visual display and explain why they believe their choices for allocating the taxpayers money is of high quality and should be adopted.
   

Final Project

The final project must include writing, art, and math. It can be done in the form of a PowerPoint, PhotoStory, Movie, or with a poster board and oral presentation. It can also be a combination of all of the above options. Please be creative in how you present the information you collect and prepare. If you have another idea for how to present your group's work let me know and we can discuss it as an option. There must be an oral or interactive component in the presentation. The presentation must address all three areas of focus and be of high quality.

Grades

Grades will depend upon both the group's final presentation and each student's individual work in their math notebook. Each student will receive two grades: one for their individual contributions and the other for the group's final project.

The students were very excited about this project because it was a topic of their choice. They really wanted to know about the War in Iraq. I worked very hard throughout this unit, as I had in the last, to include multiple perspectives. This was particularly important because I quickly determined that most or all of my students were against the war in Iraq. I made it my mission to bring in other perspectives during the unit. It wasn't hard. In fact, I'd say it was very fun! I'll share more about this later.

Group Work Structure

Photo 1: Students during a lesson during the immigration unit.

Photo 2: Group work.

During the social justice based math units I wanted each student in each group of three to be contributing an equitable amount of work. To this end I created a group structure that included three specific jobs. The students chose their jobs at the beginning of each of the two social justice based math units. The reason I chose this structure was that I read research showing that group work is only effective when it is deliberately and carefully structured. Students were expect4ed to hold regular group meetings. I attended many of their group meetings and gave them periodic grades on what I saw at these meetings. The grades I gave were based on their level of active participation in their groups process.

The group structure I used is as follows:

Leader: Organizes group, focuses and facilitates discussion, and supports other group members in completing their individual and group assignments on time. The leader makes sure all other students are doing their group jobs well and reminds them of duties they are forgetting. At the first group meeting, the leader meets with group to develop the plan for completion of project at the beginning of the project.

Researcher: In charge of researching the finer points of the topic of the project. The researcher uses resources (library, Internet, etc.) to find information about the topic. Other students may do this as well but it is the Researchers job to keep track of what has been learned and explain to the group how it applies to the final project goal. They present their findings and make assignments for future research (to be conducted by themselves or others) at each group meeting. They keep a bibliography of all the sources they use in their math notebook.

Mathematician: The mathematician keeps track of all of the mathematical work involved in the project. They are in charge of seeking outside help (parents, teachers, mathematicians) if needed by the group. They present their findings/progress and make assignments for future mathematical operations at each group meeting. They present their and others progress and needs in this area at each group meeting.

The First Social Justice Based Mathematics Unit

Photo: Student work in math journal from immigration unit.

My first social justice based mathematics unit that I taught with my 6th-7th grade students was focused on immigration. I chose immigration for a variety of reasons. First of all, I knew that it was a hot topic that we would be able to find information about on the internet. Secondly, it was an area my students knew little about and I wanted to open a window for them to see into another reality. Finally, I could find books to connect what I was doing in math to literature as well.

I decided that my unit would have a major project that the students worked through in small groups. For the immigration unit I decided to have students determine the cost of the proposed wall between the United States and Mexico-along the border. They would have to determine the appropriate building materials through research and the price for the materials. They would have to include cost of human labor, cost of any rentals of equipment, cost of materials, and tax. Their final project had to include both audio and visual components and clearly explain the materials, costs, and labor needed to build their version of the wall. The final project also had to include a thorough discussion of the students beliefs about whether the wall is just or not.

The project was scaffolded for student success. They were to work in small groups (3 students/group). In each group each student had a specific role. I will discuss the roles in more detail in a future post. The goal of having specific roles was to make sure that all students were engaged in the group process. Students were to meet with their groups and myself twice a week and they had specific due dates for specific steps they had to complete on the way to their final project.

During the unit I taught frequent mini-lessons to cover the math standards they needed to complete the project. These included lessons on unit conversions, geometry, decimals and fractions, and some more basic math reviews as needed.

A little more about the context of my research

Photo: A Special Halloween Moment, Scarecrows at our school October 31, 2007

Before I begin sharing the specific social justice based math units that I used in my classroom I'd like to share a little more about my school, classroom, and students. Since one of the most important tenants of Action Research is that it is based on context, I want to make my context come alive for you, my readers.

First of all, my school is very small. We have about 30 students. Officially we have two teachers, but thanks to a grant from the National Park Service we have scraped together enough money to afford a third teacher-that's me! We are located in a National Park and, for that matter, right in the middle of arguably one of the most beautiful places on earth. The views from our classroom windows and the school yard are world class.

All of my students' parents work for the park in one way or another. Most of them either work for the concessionaire or for the National Park Service. Nearly all of my students live in housing provided by the park, and no one can own a house in the "town" where the school is. This results in our socioeconomic demographic being very middle class. No one is particularly rich or poor when they live and work in the park. Most of the parents are very involved in their children's education and enjoy helping out at the school.

Our students have many opportunities because of our location. We get to go skiing for free all ski season, every other Wednesday-the whole school goes and it becomes our primary P.E. program for that part of the year. We also have special environmental education programs that are created just for the park schools so that our students can get to know their own park.

The class I was teaching during my AR project, the 6^th-8^th graders, was the oldest at the school and they go on a trip every three years to Scotland-to visit the town John Muir was born in. My students were preparing for this amazing trip as I completed my AR project with them.

We are also a distinguished school with a fairly high API and we have a lot of fun, freedom, and ability to teach in the way we believe is best within each of our wonderful classrooms. It was a pretty spectacular place to complete my AR project and continues to be a delightful place to work every day.

Social Justice Based Math Unit General Design

Photo: Me, caught in a teaching moment

Before choosing a social justice topic to focus on I began to look at how to structure the program overall. I knew, as I mentioned in my last post, that I wanted to use the text less, use computers more, and use group work more.

I decided that I would follow in the footsteps of a dedicated teacher researcher named Eric Gutstein (2006, 2007) and create project based social justice mathematics units. Each unit would have a project that was the central focus. Students would be broken up into small groups to work on the project and within the small groups students would have specific roles. The purpose of the specific roles was to manage the students group work time effectively by assigning specific jobs to each group member. I also decided that the students would work to complete their group project following a specific schedule that included steps towards completion that would each be graded individually along the way. Students would also be required to keep a project folder and a project journal. They would keep track of all their work in the journal and they would keep any loose papers in their folder. Each group would meet with me regularly to assure that they were completing the steps necessary and that their overall progress was good. The final project for the unit would be a multimedia presentation and the steps to completion would include meetings with me, research, mathematical calculations, and rough drafts and revisions of their final project. Each student's final grade would be based on their individual contributions and the final group presentation. A rubric would be used for their final grade and students would have access to the rubric during the project.

Once I'd thought through and wrote out all of these plans then I was able to begin the process of choosing a social justice focus area for our first unit. I also had to determine which mathematics standards would be covered during the unit and make a plan for lessons I would teach to cover the necessary math standards and the social justice issues' background, history, and points of view.