Group items tagged

(Week 8: Maia and Shawntel) This article is accessible through the UMUC library. The focus of this article was to introduce and explain the importance of strategies that motivate and engage students when learning how to solve word problems in algebra classrooms. The author argues that students show more engagement in algebra word problems when they are guided through problems that have real-life problems. The article provided data based on a study where students were given similar problems to solve with real-life and fictional problems. The students trended a preference to the real-life problems while also scoring higher on real-life problems. The authors state, "given a set of word problems covering a variety of application areas, students prefer problems which either generates intrigue or problems to which they can easily relate" (Premadasa and Bhatia, pg 15, 2013). Our group choose this article because of the current situation for the implementation process. The practicing teacher was met with a lot of resistance when introducing the new tactic. This supports our notice and wonder questions that students are not engaged and positive when approaching algebra word problems. The attitude of students directly impacts comprehension of word-problems. Therefore, we used a planning protocol to re-adjust the types of problems that were presented to the students. The practicing teacher found instructional videos that had current and real-life scenarios. Although it is still early in the implementation process, the teacher did notice an attitude change among the students as the proceeded with the material. Premadasa, K., & Bhatia, K. (2013). Real Life Applications in Mathematics: What Do Students Prefer?. International Journal For The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning, 7(2), http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=ef4d2731-303f-462b-ba77-64f1a21bc66e%40sessionmgr101

(Week 9: Shawntel & Maia) This journal article can be accessed through UMUC's library. The focus of the article was to investigate the impact of linguistics in the process of solving math word problems. The article describes as study analysis of the influence of the number of steps and operations as variables that need to be utilized by learners when solving math word problems. The study used a combination of math word problems where some had consistent language and some had inconsistent language. Both focus groups were given the same questions; however, one group the instructor focused on metacognitive strategies to assist with reading comprehension. The group who were taught metacognitive strategies highly outscored the other group. The study showed that effective teaching strategies require the inclusion of metacognitive and self-regulating processes. The article strongly argues that conceptual understanding in mathematics is highly interrelated with reading comprehension. The article discusses three main components of learning, which are cognition, metacognition, and motivation. In other words, reading comprehension equips students with the confident ability to connect previous concepts to current processes the resolve issues on their own. Our group focused on the understood definition of reading comprehension as obtaining the meaning of what has been read based on readers' previous knowledge or background information in order to continue. Therefore, reading comprehension is the most important factor to improving student success when developing strategies to solving math word problems. This article was used to support teacher strategies when facilitating group work. The students were placed in small, mixed groups to discuss the videos to solve a math word problems as suggested in the article. During their collaborative work, the teacher developed more specific metacognitive questions to focus on reading comprehension and not the math technique.

In this video it shows how to segment words. It mentions a "tap out method". Some of my students are ready to start segmenting words. It also has an "articulatory gesture chart" this chart shows a picture of a person's mouth and the sound it make underneath it. I think this would be beneficial for my students because even though they watch me it something hard for them to make the sound. This would help support my SMART goal.

This article details an instructional model called Interactive Learning (IL), which contains ten best practices for educators to follow that must be implemented in all lessons. Using these practices can help student achievement tremendously, as evidenced by the example school, which doubled student achievement in three years using these practices.

This is a informative article about 10 strategies for engaging underperforming students. Since my SMART goal is all about giving additional resources for success to my lowest performing students (students who previously took Biology I) this fits perfectly. This will help me create a plan to reach out and engage each student and write up resources for each of them.

I think these ideas have come a long way and are being implemented in many classrooms. This seems like a norm for my school or even my classroom. Although, I say that and I think it is hard to incorporate all components every day. Especially when I think of student movement. I think this is an excellent article to pinpoint instructional strategies.