Impact on LearningWhile engaging students in meaningful discourse and reflection, I identified many aspects of growth. Students gained the confidence to try new strategies, share their thinking, ask more questions, and apply math terms. Students even came to realize that breaking down a word problem sentence by sentence and to highlight the important information eliminated how daunting the initial challenge seemed. Such awareness provided students the confidence and independence to work through such problems on their own.
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Professional GrowthUpon implementation and completion of this action research project, I was reminded how crucial it was for students to develop relevant connections to their learning, rather than memorizing algorithms. My successes with the math journals and talks that took place were guided by the research conducted, the instructional strategies implemented, the meaningful planning used, and the adaptations taken. Prior to each session, I found it beneficial to assess each day's journal and really ask myself how I could promote deeper discussions. Therefore, I planned questions in advance for students to answer in their journals, added vocabulary terms to incorporate, implemented a variety of engagement strategies, and created possible questions I may have had to ask to promote extensive conversations.
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Future Instruction
Math journals were included as an addition to the introduction of each lesson. The question found in each journal was taken from the teacher manual in order to give students the adequate information first hand. Therefore, this resource was not supplemental, rather an extension. Due to the length of time it took to converse about each word problem, it became supplemental to the multiple practice problems we did prior to independent work time. Though this instruction took away from the "we do" aspect of the instructional model, it did not deplete from student success. Based on the positive results throughout the process, I intend to create journals in the future for the duration of the entire school year. Rather than quickly discussing the warm up problem and modeling my thinking, the journals provide students the opportunity to grasp the concept in their own, individual capacity. More specifically, it allows students to annotate and document their thoughts using their own visuals and wording for more deeper, personal comprehension.
Certain discussions took longer than others in response to the difficulty of each problem. Some math talks and journal entries took as long as 25 minutes, whereas others only required 10 minutes. I made sure to show a timer while students wrote their explanations to ensure their awareness and time management. When students did not have adequate time to complete their written reflections, we utilized the downtime after lunch, prior to writing class, to finalize them. Students who either finished their math journals rapidly or required additional time to complete the math journals remained relatively consistent throughout. With that being said, in the future, I will make changes to the implementation of the journals and math talks.
For one, I would adapt the word problems for those above average students to promote higher level thinking and reflection. Specifically, I may adapt and add to the questions in the journals themselves or post critical thinking questions on the board for students to answer once they would finish their explanation piece. Another way I could change this instruction to benefit high-ability students, as well as lower students, would be to have them teach the class or individual peers. Having students conference with each other and work through problems on their own not only promotes collaboration, but critical and creative thinking as well.
In regard to the students who took more time to complete their journals, I may allow them the opportunity to verbally share their thinking with me one on one in a conference, with the help of a partner, or through the technology resource of FlipGrid. FlipGrid is a free resource where a topic can be created and students can respond to the topic, prompt, or question through the use of a camera and voice recording. In addition, individuals have the opportunity to view and respond to other videos with an additional video and/or typed response. Though I did incorporate FlipGrid as a supplement to the journal a couple of times, it did not elicit the results I had hoped. Therefore, going forward, I feel as though I can do a better job at scaffolding it to promote the results I had hoped for.
Overall, I made multiple changes throughout the instructional process that I would deem successful and would continue to use in the future. Based on observational notes and feedback from my associate, I began to model the visual and process of solving the word problem with the students, then I allowed them to share and explain how and why we solved it that way. This change made way for additional problems to practice during independent work time. Another modification I made along the way was including guiding questions and vocab terms for them to use. I decided to do this when I first graded the journals and realized that they could explain the "how" but neglected to share the "why". Therefore, these questions gave them a purpose and called for deeper reflections. The addition of listing out math terms to include made their reflections much more credible, as well as intellectual. I even made another addition to this change, by having them highlight the terms in their explanations to ensure they used each and every important math word. These changes not only resulted in lengthier written responses, but in meaningful connections and deeper understanding as well.
Certain discussions took longer than others in response to the difficulty of each problem. Some math talks and journal entries took as long as 25 minutes, whereas others only required 10 minutes. I made sure to show a timer while students wrote their explanations to ensure their awareness and time management. When students did not have adequate time to complete their written reflections, we utilized the downtime after lunch, prior to writing class, to finalize them. Students who either finished their math journals rapidly or required additional time to complete the math journals remained relatively consistent throughout. With that being said, in the future, I will make changes to the implementation of the journals and math talks.
For one, I would adapt the word problems for those above average students to promote higher level thinking and reflection. Specifically, I may adapt and add to the questions in the journals themselves or post critical thinking questions on the board for students to answer once they would finish their explanation piece. Another way I could change this instruction to benefit high-ability students, as well as lower students, would be to have them teach the class or individual peers. Having students conference with each other and work through problems on their own not only promotes collaboration, but critical and creative thinking as well.
In regard to the students who took more time to complete their journals, I may allow them the opportunity to verbally share their thinking with me one on one in a conference, with the help of a partner, or through the technology resource of FlipGrid. FlipGrid is a free resource where a topic can be created and students can respond to the topic, prompt, or question through the use of a camera and voice recording. In addition, individuals have the opportunity to view and respond to other videos with an additional video and/or typed response. Though I did incorporate FlipGrid as a supplement to the journal a couple of times, it did not elicit the results I had hoped. Therefore, going forward, I feel as though I can do a better job at scaffolding it to promote the results I had hoped for.
Overall, I made multiple changes throughout the instructional process that I would deem successful and would continue to use in the future. Based on observational notes and feedback from my associate, I began to model the visual and process of solving the word problem with the students, then I allowed them to share and explain how and why we solved it that way. This change made way for additional problems to practice during independent work time. Another modification I made along the way was including guiding questions and vocab terms for them to use. I decided to do this when I first graded the journals and realized that they could explain the "how" but neglected to share the "why". Therefore, these questions gave them a purpose and called for deeper reflections. The addition of listing out math terms to include made their reflections much more credible, as well as intellectual. I even made another addition to this change, by having them highlight the terms in their explanations to ensure they used each and every important math word. These changes not only resulted in lengthier written responses, but in meaningful connections and deeper understanding as well.