Student Understanding Interview

Check out my Student Audio Interview!

Wicked Problem Project Part D

Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?  
There were no major deviations from the original proposed plan.  It was interesting to look at the feedback I had gotten about my plan however.  It seemed clear that I had not explained as clearly as I could have the reasons for and ideas about how to implement my website.  As of right now I have a lot of work to do to get this up and running for next year.  There is a ton of content that needs to be written.  Thankfully I have the help of the teacher that I will be working with next year.

Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice.
This is a hard question to answer as this was not intended to go live until the '11-'12 school year.  We plan to enlist the help of some students this summer in gauging their reactions to the work that has already been completed and how it can be bettered.  This is really formative in nature but since I will have no other evidence of success it will have to serve as summative until I can see what really happens.  I can say that my teaching partner for this project was really excited to see the work that I had done and was anxious to add to it.

How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?
I don't think that I would go about doing much differently that I have.  I believe strongly that this will be a exceptionally useful next year. For my personal sanity, I might have chosen a project with a smaller scope.  It has been really difficult to deal with the vast number of things (different technologies, producing content, aesthetics...) required to produce this project.  However, I think the fact that it was difficult and did force me to think about so many different aspects is what makes it a superior choice to an easier topic.

What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?
I think the biggest lesson to be learned is that it is a bad idea to pick a technology and then try to wrap a context around it.  From having watched my group members blog postings it seemed like many of them realized there were some issues with their chosen technology once they reached the TPACK phase of the assignment.  TPACK obviously provided a reflective tool to evaluate whether a proposed solution was good or not.  However, I think TPACK is much better used as a tool to guide me in the construction phase.  I would prefer to see Part C of this assignment exchanged with part B for this reason. 

In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?
I have a feeling that I will be busy for some time completing the current project.  I anticipate that it will be continuously revised and refined once we see it in action.  In that sense I am not sure that I will move on to doing another project like this for quite a while. 

Mobile Learning Lab

Alright, I played with Polleverywhere for quite a while.  I could see using it in my classroom as a formative assessment tool for sure.  I liked how quickly it registered responses (I sent several to my own question).  The display as a bar graph for multiple choice questions is very nice.  I have used my TI Navigator system in the same way, but it is cumbersome to set up and get kids logged into.  I am less optimistic about the open response questions.  The data isn't aggregated in a way that is as helpful as it could be.  For example I sent the same response twice because I wanted to see how it would handle the information.  The result was two separate answers that had the same text.  One cool thing about the Navigator system is that if it gets the same response multiple times it shows that in a bar graph by increasing the length of the corresponding bar.  I also don't like that you cant ask multiple questions on one poll.  I see using this as a way to get a quick fix on what students know and don't but prescripting questions might be difficult as I don't always know what direction students will go with a particular topic. Here is one of the polls I made.

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

On the Classroom 2.0 site people cited other potential issues with using it.  Cell phone reception seemed to be one possible limiting issue as well as those who don't have unlimited text plans.  Also, in reading through the 25 Practical Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Classroom there were some other issues raised about students who may not have a cell phone and possibly feeling embarrassed if they can't participate.

I have watched kids take pictures of homework assignments from the board so they didn't have scramble to write it all down.  I have even taken a picture of some students work with my phone so that we could save it to talk about the following day.  I think that there are lots of uses for phones in particular and I think as educators we need to learn how to encourage kids to use them creatively and not in the disruptive "I need to text my friend who's in German class right now" way.  Several of my colleagues refuse to believe that students are capable of doing much other than the former and I keep arguing that the reason for that is that we are not showing them what it means to use them appropriately.  That is a separate issue for now I guess.

Data Visualization Lab

Ok, to be honest I didn't expect much from this lab.  As a math major and physics minor I spent huge chunks of time in college making visualizations to support my work.  This was particularly true in my physics labs.  I decided not to look at visualizations that I was used to working on in those classes and instead looked at some of the flow-charting options that were available. 

I have used MS Visio on a couple of occasions including recently in my Wicked Problem Project and I think it has some great features.  For example if you drag a balloon onto a page with an existing balloon Visio will snap the new object to a grid that aligns it vertically or horizontally with the existing item.  Really this snap feature is useful for drawing arrows between items, crossing out a balloon, etc.  Visio doesn't do a great job with pretty colorful charts.

For this lab I played around with three pieces of free flow-charting software.  Dia (http://live.gnome.org/Diav), Exploreatree (http://www.exploratree.org.uk/) and Gliffy (http://www.gliffy.com/).  Each had their own relative strengths and weaknesses.  I am already thinking that it would be cool to use one to set up a comparison chart.  Here it is, double click to take a closer look..

The winner in terms of functionality is Gliffy.  Presumably that is why it is the only one that you eventually have to pay for.  I actually used it Gliffy to make the chart.  Excel might have been better for this task but still pretty neat.

The real visualization I choose to make is a chart showing the normal/ideal flow of students through our math curriculum. 

Wow, talk about professional looking results in about 40 minutes.  My big ah ha moment with this came when I noticed that as elements are moved the software provides the coordinates of the object.  This allowed me to line them all up neatly.  I later discovered that it was possible to enter the coordinates to locate the object, as opposed to moving them into place pixel by pixel.  Not as nice as Visio's snap feature but very acceptable and better looking results in less time than Visio (at least the antiquated 2002 version that I have).  I will definitely be using this type of thing more often, especially as I continue to put together my website.

Wicked Problem Project

After 8+ weeks I am finally done with this project.  What follows the video is a summary of the problem addressed, information about the proposed solution and its connections to the TPACK framework.

The Problem:

The problem facing our district and likely many others is that students who struggle in their mathematics classes.  Often these students reach a point where their self efficacy becomes so low that they give up, resulting in failing multiple trimester of Algebra 1.  The consequences of this are wide ranging and include students not graduating on time if at all, schools failing to make AYP… clearly in the context of No Child Left Behind the last outcome is unacceptable but more importantly as educators we know that the prospects for these students is bleak.  In an effort to increase student achievement my district has dedicated four hours of instruction time for interventions with them.  The teachers will work with students in some way to promote success in their current math classes.  The additional constraint was added that the class must be technology based.

The Solution:

We will use a math lab that is technology based, with the goal of helping students be more successful in their current math classes.  The lab is scheduled to be staffed by two math teachers and cover 4 of the 6 hours in our day.  The lab consists of a classroom with laptops where students will work on assignments determined by their current math teachers and the lab supervisor. 

We decided that we did not want students assigned to the course.  This had been tried previously and the classes ended up becoming populated by groups of students who actively sought to undermine the purpose of the class.  The proposed system allows us to bring students into the lab as needed by calling them out of classes other than their math class or other required courses.   Unfortunately this means that students will be brought down during their elective periods.  It is certain that there will be teachers of electives who are unhappy about having students pulled out of their classrooms.  This is not a statement that elective classes are less important.  To the contrary, under the current system students who fail end up having reduced choices of electives, as they end up filling their schedule with retakes of required courses.  It is our belief that this will be mitigated by the fact that students passing their math classes should have more slots in their schedule for electives later.  Additionally, we do not intend to pull them from any class for weeks at a time and it is planned that they should be able to continue with the coursework of any elective that they miss.

In order to reach as many students as possible we have decided to construct a website that contains a series of learning modules or groups of content geared toward helping a student with a specific goal.  We will facilitate their learning by monitoring their progress with them directing them to particular resources while at the same time building mentoring relationships.  The modules will do the majority of the work with the mathematics content.  We will do the management work and assist with the mathematics as necessary.

What we will be looking to see is if we are able to lower our failure rates for starters.  This is easy to measure because it is quantitative.  A more difficult thing to measure will be the behaviors’ of the students we work with.  It is hoped that we will have an impact on their attitudes toward school and math in particular.

TPACK:

Technology and Pedagogy:  The main issue here is that our chosen pedagogy requires students to use higher order thinking skills and engage in doing mathematics not just memorizing algorithms and facts.  As such it is imperative that we select a technology that supports this view.  There are various pieces of software that exist to help students pass math courses, however they seem to share the notion that mathematics is about process and memorization.  In order to remain true to a constructivist pedagogical model a technology must be chosen that allows us to author content to address the issues of our learners.  The technology must also be flexible enough to allow different learners to access a vast array of content at different times.  A website is one such technology.  In addition to meeting all of the criteria described above it has the added benefit of allowing many other technologies to be used through it, such as blogs, embedded videos, links to other websites etc.  As excusive authors of our own content we are able to help ensure that the experience that students get is consistent with what is being done in their regular classroom

Technology and Content: What is true about a website is that it allows for multiple other technologies to be used within it.  Instead of discussing the entirety of the problem we can look at how a module may play out.  Lets say for example students are struggling with the notion of a function.  A part of the module devoted to exploring these ideas might be a time lapse video where students are asked to record their ideas about what things the can measure that are changing.  They could also be asked to think about way to show how two of the things that noticed change.  More pointed questions like pick two things that are changing and make a table are also possible.   This same module may contain more directly targeted ideas like a StAIR where the students would be asked to take a table, make a graph from it and explain how the two relate.  After any activity students could be asked to respond to a series of questions about their learning.  Each module would also have an assessment at the end to give us and the student feedback about their progress.  A Google Docs Form could be embedded for this purpose.  A link to a Jing presentation about how to make a rule from a table could also be included.  The technology allows for almost any content topic to be covered in this way.  The format of a website allows for complete flexibility to add many different types of experiences for the student to help them engage in the content more fluently. 

Content and Pedagogy:  Where our program differs most significantly from my perception of other mathematics programs is that we do not teach a skill and then try to teach how it is connected to other ideas.  Our goal is to have students come up with ideas for how to deal with problems that is directly linked to other things that they already know.  They may then develop skills as a result of a deeper understanding of the mathematics, but it is meant to be grounded in understanding, not memorization.  We often provide situations where we expect particular mathematics to be “discovered” as a result but the questions are open and not scaffolded to the point where students are left with no other choice but to do the things we want.  This kind of thinking by students is uncomfortable for many of them and they struggle as a result.  There is a need for students to have extra practice in thinking through this type of problem, as this is what is expected of all students in the classroom.  For some students the extra chance to experience the content from their classes again may aid in their understanding and proficiency. 

We also know that having multiple means to access content is helpful in allowing students to access the mathematics.  Many students may also find that interacting with a computer allows them to move at their own pace through material as opposed to what they may experience in the classroom.  Many students lack self assessment skills which would be a tenant in any of the content that is presented in the modules.   It is hoped that students will be able to see some success with mathematics in an environment that is nonthreatening and not directly tied to a grade.  They can experiment with their ideas and build new ones without having to feel as though others will judge them for their responses.  This is where I take on a very active role with students, encouraging them to work with the content the way they would be expected to in their actual math class.

WPP Part C: Implementation

You can take a look at some of the things that I have done so far for my Wicked Problem Project.  If you click on the link below it will download the podcast that I have created.  It should open a new window that is your preferred audio player.  You will probably want to minimize the audio player so that you will be able to view the screenshots that are being referenced.

Click here for audio

Image 1: Weebly's builder interface and the live site.

Image 3 and 2 respectivly (yes, I know 2 comes before 3)

Look forward to seeing how this works!

Personal Learning Plan Reflection

It seems like it hasn’t been that long since I started the MAET program but I feel as though I have made significant progress towards my goals.  Having reviewed my original plan from 810 just to get a sense of what my goals were when I began it seems clear that I have met many of them or a least addressed large portions.  I think one of the more interesting aspects is looking back on them and being able to see how they have evolved.  When I started the program I had two goals in mind.  The first was to learn or develop a framework for understanding how to implement technology in my classroom in a more fitting way than I was already.  The second goal was to build a skill set that would put me in a position to be a technology leader in my department, school and district.

During 811 we were introduced to the concept of TPACK, which was further considered in this class.  The TPACK framework has helped me greatly in meeting my first goal.  The seemingly simple idea that technology can and should work in the service of pedagogy and content has caused me to be considerably more aware of what to think about when using technology in a lesson.  Whereas I used to say “Wow, that’s a cool piece of technology I’m going to use it tomorrow” now I am thinking carefully and deliberately about which one to pick and for which reason.  For example, it has been very difficult to do the Wicked Problem Project (besides the time required to do it well) because I am finding that I need to be extremely careful about how I put it together.  The difficulty lies not in making technology work but in making the technology work with my pedagogy.  I don’t like to teach by telling, I prefer to teach by putting students in a situation where they need to make decisions and draw conclusions for themselves, the learning outcomes tend to be much greater for the student when the latter is used.  As such, I want to do more with my website than just have it be a list of things to read or watch.  The technology is geared toward that purpose (thinking about 810 and the difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0).  I am having to find creative ways to engage the students in the topic by integrating some web 2.0 technology.

TPACK has also served to heighten my awareness of my pedagogy.  I am now thinking about wanting students to be the center of the lesson (this was almost automatic in what I had been doing) I am finding that I am refocusing on exactly how I want my students to interact with the content and what technology I can pick to make that happen.  Even in the absence of technology I am thinking more about my teaching in terms of the PCK portion of the framework.  No doubt I am a better teacher when I do that, particularly because make so many of my own assignments.

With regard to my second goal of becoming a technology leader, I have been a little slower moving.  This is typical of my personality though as I tend to want to master something before I am completely comfortable sharing it with others.  I have certainly brought many ideas to my department and a few to other teachers.  They tend to be things that I feel comfortable with.  For example, I shared with an interdepartmental group my StAIR project about solving for x in a thoughtful way as opposed to the algorithmic way that is traditionally taught.  I was able to get a ton of feedback about it as well as see how people who were not “mathy” interacted with it.  I know others in my department have developed similar things after having learned about how to make a PowerPoint with internally linking pages from my StAIR.  
I have been working with two other teachers on developing ideas for the website which is also part of my Wicked problem project.  One of the main obstacles with this has really been finding time to get together and discuss it.  I have made some significant progress on the site, as it was non existent four weeks ago, and am looking forward to working with others to hopefully do great things with it.

I mentioned earlier that it has been interesting to watch my goals evolve as I have moved through the program.  My future focus will be to continue to work on integrating technology in my classroom.  I want to set up a class wiki page next year where my students will take turns entering day to day information about what happened in class, summarize the topics covered and list any assignments that were completed or assigned for homework.  I think that this will help them to feel like they are owners of the class in a different way.  It will also help me by reducing the work I have to do when students miss a day for whatever reason.  I plan on having the groups of students assigned in one or two week intervals to this task.  I also plan to have a second group of students who are responsible for making suggestions for alterations to the wiki.  I picture it as being a sort of review for the students while simultaneously forcing them to make sense of the mathematics we are working on and communicate their understanding to others.  I need to make sure that whatever I choose to use to do this will allow students to have an equation editor.  Otherwise it may be difficult to communicate the mathematics that we are doing in class.  While I would not be upset about students needing to use English to describe the concepts, I aslo want them to have practice communicating in symbolic math.  Wow look at that, TPACK in action.  In my opinion this is much better than the “i’ll just use some technology and hope for the best” approach that was previously my custom.

Carrying forward with the Wicked Problem Project, I really want to code the website myself.  I made a storyboard layout for it and I have found that wysiwyg interface offered by most build a website services to be inadequate for that purpose.  One of the perks of coding my own stuff is that I can make it look and behave anyway that I want.  For example Weebly doesn’t allow you to code a navigation back button.  The nav menu is too simplistic, not allowing for any interesting effects like a hover over drop down menu.  It does a marvelous job of being fairly easy to use but the cost is functionality.  Choosing to code myself does have some drawbacks however; I have concerns about the sustainability of the project if I end up not being teaching the class again.  If I am the only one who know how to code or knows what I coded than I will be solely responsible for its maintenance.  Additionally, I will need to learn a lot more about coding in order for it to function the way I really want it to.

I’ve ended my last two learning plan summaries the same way.  I have so many new ideas that I am having a hard time keeping them all straight.  My big fear is that I will end up trying to implement too many things at one time and end up doing a poor job of it because I have spread myself so thin.  As I look back on some of my early work with technology in the certificate courses I can already see how they can be improved and I look forward to being able to continue to develop as both a teacher and student of technology.