Bev's ETEC 533 Blog

To be quite honest I really dreaded doing an analysis of my e-folio. I do not enjoy posting to the e-folio, preferring the less formal and much safer space found in Vista, so I did not think I would find any apparent themes emerge. Much to my surprise the idea of “seeing” math in the “real world” appeared in many of my entries.

For our first e-folio entry we had to comment on what we thought was good use of technology in the classroom. I created a list and my first bullet was “to see something they couldn’t see before.” I went back to the forum and looked at my auto-eography and sure enough, it was all about an activity that I love doing with my students because it helps them to “see” math in everyday situations. This obsession that I have comes up again in my research on graphing calculators where I concluded that one of the values of graphing calculators was that its allows students a much more visual approach to mathematics. In our “sharing resources” activity I presented Google Sketch-up as a great tool because it allows students to use math tools that are used in the real world. As well, it also allows them to see things in 3-d. In reviewing knowledge networks, I was really drawn to the Globe project because students were involved in carrying out real data collection and tabulation. Once again it was real world math. The ideas reappear in the next three postings in various forms, but are all related to the idea of finding ways to help students relate what they are learning to the real world.

So where does obsession come from? Where am I at now and where do I go from here. Math is an elitist occupation. Many people are judged on how far up the intelligence scale they are by their ability to do math. In Alberta we offer three levels of math in our high schools. The “top” level math or pure math is deemed the “smart” math and is very challenging. Student who take Applied math, the stream I teach, consider themselves “dummies”. This academic course takes a very different approach to math, and utilizes a great deal of technology. Most of my students are there because they really struggle with math. These students do not have learning problems. Students with learning problems would be found in the third math stream, focusing on life skills math. I am searching for a way to make this math real and relevant to my applied students and to help them see themselves as math “learners” and not “dummies”. I use a great deal of technology in my class. Calculators, clickers, computers, the interactive white board, and cameras are used on a regular basis but I do not think I utilized these tools in the most effective ways.

Many of our students view math, even the better students, as something that you do with numbers and has very little link to what most people do in the real world. Students tend to view themselves as good math students if they can perform the algorithms they were taught, even if they don’t know how they fit in. Much damage is done to perfectly capable students who see themselves as “stupid” because they can’t learn many of these seemingly meaningless algorithms.

My friend’s daughter struggled all through high school math, and just failed a college level math course and yet this girl can solve contextually based complex math problems when she needs to. She sees herself as not very smart, yet has many skills and abilities. Her story is common among my math students.

I firmly believe that the traditional way of teaching mathematics has created a culture of math haters. Unlike many of the sciences, math has not fully embraced the use of technology to help make math more “real” in our students’ world. My interest in technology stems from an interest in finding tools that will create that link from math to the real world. I think I understood this interest in technology, but this course has helped me to formalize and articulate it.

My journey through ETEC 533 has not provided all the answers I was hoping for, but it has provided me some valuable learning experiences from which I can continue to find some of my own answers. Some of the tools we explored this term have led me to believe that math educators have a great deal to learn from science educators. They have embraced technology by creating amazing online activities including simulations, explorations, and games. These activities seek to bridge that gap between abstract science concepts and the real world. Students can now “see” how these concepts are relevant in their lives. I need to continue to seek out these types of tools that can be used in a math class.

Although the use of graphing calculators is standard practice in my classes, my research has given me a much greater appreciation of what can be achieved with them. Reformulating activities and questions will help my students “see” and connect more of the math they are learning. Our project involves the use of both graphing calculators and motion detectors. Motion detectors have great potential for helping students “see” math as they literally translate motion into mathematical data. I am really excited to introduce this concept to my students.

I found our last activity the most exciting, and provided me with the most food for thought. The whole notion of embodied learning or (Winn 2002) through what Reiner (Jones et al, 2002) called an “embodied experience” ,an experience that draws from tacit bodily knowledge, offers real possibilities for my students. I have focused on helping students “see” math, but embodied learning goes beyond to multi-sensory learning. I have often used storytelling, and role-playing in my math classes in the younger grades, but not as often in high school as the more demanding curriculum leaves very little time for “play”. I suspect that taking more time to “play”, to have students engage in more multisensory activities that activate the mental structures might be time well spent. This is a relatively new area of study, but one that I shall follow with great interest.

I will be returning to the classroom after taking this year off to complete my MET. It has been an incredible journey and my head is swimming with new ideas and even more questions. Having completed three courses this term, and three the last, it is difficult to attribute my new understandings to anyone course. There is so much transference between the three courses that it is often difficult to know where one stops and the next starts. What I will walk away knowing is that my quest to help my students “see” math is not futile and that the future of technology in the math classroom may soon provide us with embodied learning experiences that make math real and relevant.

Resources:

Jones, G.M., Minogue, J., Tretter, T.R., Neigishi, A., & Taylor, R. (2006). Haptic augmentation of science instruction: Does touch matter? Science Education, 90, (1), 111-123.

Winn, W., Windschitl, M., Fruland, R., & Lee, Y. (2002). When does immersion in a virtual environment help students construct understanding? Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.