By Robin Anderson
Context
Education 263A: Curriculum and Instruction in Mathematics is the first of a 3-course sequence focusing on mathematics teaching and learning. The course provides an opportunity for sustained learning and professional growth. The broad goals are to help students:
- examine their own knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions about mathematics, teaching, and students,
- increase their knowledge of mathematics and mathematics pedagogy,
- increase their theoretical knowledge and practical experience in planning, teaching, and assessing mathematics,
- understand the mathematical needs of a diverse range of students,
- understand the complexities of diverse, multiply-ability classrooms while broadening your repertoire of teaching techniques, and
- learn from your experiences in schools through informed reflection.
The specific goals of the first lesson are centered around getting the students to think about their knowledge, beliefs and assumptions about mathematics. They begin to reflect on their understanding of mathematics through personal reflection, small group conversation and whole group debrief.
The objectives regarding technology in this course are both to generate and collect reflections and build capacity in the teachers to deploy technology in their classrooms.
Technology
Poll Everywhere is an easy-to-use live polling website that provides opportunities for audience members to interact with different types of questions during a lecture/presentation. The polls can be embedded into presentations or accessed on the web. Respondents follow a short link provided by the presenter to answer questions and interact with other audience members virtually. There are multiple formats for questions, which allow for varied types of engagement. The data from the polls can be downloaded and saved for future analysis.
To create a poll, the presenter must first have an account, free and paid accounts are provided. If a large number of responses is needed, or advanced data analysis is required, a paid account is recommended. There are multiple formats for question types, traditional multiple choice polls, opened ended polls that can collect data in different formats. With open ended polls, users can up or down vote other responses or data can be displayed in a word cloud. Once the format has been chosen, the presenter shares the link with the audience and activates the poll for responses.
Teaching Strategies
Poll Everywhere provides differentiated discussion and assessment tools. Poll Everywhere allows presenters to get immediate feedback from the audience and tailor the direction of the discussion to meet the needs of the respondents. It also allows for interactive discussions in which a majority of the participants interact, unlike traditional whole class discussions where only one or two people get their point hear. The different choices in poll types also allows for closed and open questions allowing for directed and generative discussions.
For this lesson, I will use Poll Everywhere to begin a discussion around the question “What is Math?” Because the participants are beginning mathematics teachers it is important to surface preconceived definitions of math and build upon them to generate a group definition. The lesson will be framed in the following way [see implementation plan for more detail]:
- Pose the question “What is Math?”.
- Have students individually think about how they would respond.
- Display the question in Poll Everywhere using the up/down vote poll type with free response answers
- Have students individually respond
- As the students respond, they will see other responses which they can vote on.
- Allow responses and voting for 3-5 minutes
- Close responding/voting
- Move into table discussions with the framing of finding similarities between definitions in service of building one definition per table group.
- Have each group present their response to the group. [maybe use another poll to collect final responses?]
Implementation
- When will you be implementing your lesson/artifact?
6/27/16
- How do you plan to observe or assess its effectiveness?
I will compare responses with previous year (data is collected in pictures of whiteboards used in previous years). I will also discuss with Jo Boaler (instructor) how she felt the technology enhanced the discussion. I will also talk with previous TAs to assess the answers that were received in relation to previous years.
- Share any feedback you’ve received from your faculty supervisor on the lesson/artifact/approach.
Jo is excited to start using technology but is caution about introducing non-specific math technologies due to the demand on the pre-service teachers. I felt Poll Everywhere was a good general tool that these teachers can still use, even though it is not math specific due to the possibilities of providing a platform for discourse.
