Becoming a Teacher of
Mathematics to Elementary
Students
Wynona Walker
Teacher Education and
Administration
Major: Interdisciplinary Studies
ESL EC-6
Professor: Dr. Jeanne Tunks
Teacher Education and
Administration
The Battle between Math and I
• Background (elementary school, high school,
and college)
• Professional Development School (PDS 1) Fall
2011 and Math Methods course
Autoethnographic
• “Autoethnography is a qualitative research method
that utilizes data about self and its context to gain an
understanding of the connectivity between self others
within the same context.” (Ngunjiri, 2010, p.2)
• Analyzation of weekly posts and projects between my
professor and I shows a transformation.
“Murnau-Garden II”
Wassily Kandinsky
First Assignment in Math
Methods
• Painting that relates to me as
a Math learner and teacher
• Appearance and colors
connect to my inability to
remember terms, types of
math, or ways to solve
mathematical problems
• Importance of this painting
Fiesta Math Night
• What is it?
• The game I created: Spin It
• September 24, 2011: First game night
Tutoring
•
Required to tutor six students for 8 weeks
•
Response to intervention model (RTI), “A problem solving process that uses
curriculum based measures to identify students whose level and rate of learning
are below those of their peers” (Stickney, 2005, p.1).
•
Representation of the RTI model
o Pre Diagnostic: 1st week
o Tutoring sessions: 2nd week- 7th week
o Post Diagnostic: 8th week
•
My students
•
September 20, 2011: Pre- Diagnostic Testing
o 10% to 70% accuracy on 100 point scale
o Place value, area of struggle
o Looked at Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to find focus for tutoring sessions
•
First Tutoring session experience
Game Night #2
• October 23, 2011.
• Changed game, changed attitude
• Experience with students and parents
Ending Tutoring
• Realized what I learned in Math Methods could be used in
tutoring sessions.
• Last day of tutoring sessions: “Preparation for Post
Diagnostic”
o Many many games
• Post Diagnostic Testing
o The chart on the next page shows the progress of the students during the entire
tutoring time frame, including the pre-diagnositc test, the six tutoring sessions,
and the post-diagnostic.
Post Diagnostic Testing
• Every student progressed.
• The chart on the next page shows the progress
of the students during the entire tutoring time
frame, including the pre-diagnositc test, the six
tutoring sessions, and the post-diagnostic.
Tutoring Results
Effects of Tutoring
•
Using real world items and ideas is one of the most effective ways to teach math
concepts.
o
•
Importance of Manipulatives
o
•
Middleton (1995) suggests, “when children are motivated intrinsically to perform an academic
activity, they spend more time engaged in the activity, learn better, and enjoy the activity more than
when they are motivated extrinsically” (p. 1).
Toni Battle says, “manipulatives are the way to our future and the way to new knowledge. No matter
where we turn or what we do, we as a society are using some form of manipulative in our lives” (2007,
p.4).
How I used it
o
I utilized base ten blocks and place value charts to help my students understand place value. This
helped them see the physical value of the numbers they saw written on the white board in front of the
classroom and their worksheets.
More Effects of Tutoring
•
Putting the students first
•
Weekly postings forced me to see what worked and did not work when teaching Math
•
Teachers need to familiarize themselves with the math concepts they are teaching and
create a good relationship with those concepts.
o
•
According to research, “the mathematical knowledge of most adults is weak. We are simply failing to reach
reasonable standards of mathematical proficiency with most of our students, and those students become the
next generation of adults, some of them teachers” (Ball et. al, 2005, p.14).
Math Methods course as a resource during tutoring
Math Night #3
•
•
•
•
November 17, 2011: Third Fiesta Math Night
More positive attitude
Experiences with students
Reflection of all three nights
At the end of 16 weeks
“Square Sierpenski Subdivision
Variation #1” by Michael A.
Coleman
Reflection
• Fiesta Math Night and 8
weeks of Tutoring
• Reflection posting for Math
Methods
o Description of painting in relation
to me as a learner and teacher of
Mathmatics after 16 weeks.
Pillars of Learning
James Zull
•
(2002) “The Art of Changing the Brain,:
Enriching the Practice of Teaching by
Exploring the Biology of Learning”
describes four stages of learning.
o
•
“We have a concrete experience, we
develop reflective observation and
connections, we generate abstract
hypotheses, we then do active testing of
those hypotheses, and therefore have a new
Concrete experience, and a new Learning
Cycle ensues” (A. Fernandez, personal
communication, October 12, 2006).
Pillars of learning are gathering,
analyzing, creating, and acting.
Relation
•
•
Fiesta Math Night and Tutoring long-term
events: step out my comfort zone in order
to create a better relationship with Math
“To feel in control, to feel that one is
making progress, is necessary for this
Learning Cycle to self-perpetuate” (A.
Fernandez, personal communication,
October 12, 2006).
o
o
Initially we learn about something and
develop fear against that learning, it takes
our brains a while before it will see it as
anything less than frightening.
Once we have a positive, real-life
experience the negative experience
becomes more overshadowed by that
positive, real-life experience.
Final Thoughts
• Making a truce with Mathematics
“Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared
highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the
explorers often get lost.” W.S. Anglin.
References
Ball, D. L., Hill, H. C., & Bass, H. (2005). Knowing Mathematics for Teaching. American Federation of Teachers, 10. Retrieved
24 Jan. 2012, from
http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:29UqhTHObFAJ:scholar.google.com/+knowing+mathematics+for+tea
ching&hl=en&as_sdt=0,44
Battle, T. S. (2007). Infusing Math Manipulatives: The Key to an Increase in Academic Achievement in the Mathematics
Classroom. Final Research Proposal. Online SubmissionEric, Retrieved 27 Jan. 2012 from EBSCOhost.
Bochner, A. P., & Ellis, C. (2002). Ethnographically speaking: autoethnography, literature, and aesthetics. Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira Press.
Corte, E.D., & Verschaffel, L. (1997). Teaching Realistic Mathematical Modeling in the Elementary School: A Teaching
Experiment With Fifth Graders. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. Retrieved 25 Jan. 2012, from
http://www.jstor.org/pss/749692.
Ellis, Carolyn S. (2000) Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject. The Handbook of Qualitative
Research. Ed. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln. Sage. 733-768.
Klem, A. M., & Connell, J. P. (2004). Relationships Matter: Linking Teacher Support to Student Engagement and Achievement.
Journal of School Health, 74(7). Retrieved 29 Jan. 2012, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.17461561.2004.tb08283.x/abstract
Fernandez, A., (2006, October 12). The Art of Changing the Brain:Interview with Dr. James Zull.
Retrieved from http: www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/10/12/an-ape-can-do-this-can-we-not/
Middleton, J. A. (1995). A Study of Intrinsic Motivation in the Mathematics Classroom: A Personal Constructs Approach. Journal
for Research in Mathematices Education, 26(3). Retrieved 29 Jan. 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/pss/749130
Stickney, D. (2005). Response to Intervention. Retrieved 1 Mar. 2012, from
http://education.wm.edu/centers/ttac/resources/articles/assessment/responseintervent/index.php
Wall, Sarah. (2006). An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography. International
Journal of Qualitative Methods 5(2).
Contact Information:
Wynona Walker
Email: wynonawalker@my.unt.edu