As I continue to work on my GAME plan I have had happy to say that I am having some success with having students self correct their work by using the Internet as a self-help tool. I asked each student to bring home their math journals and find websites and or tutorials to help them understand their misconceptions and correct their mistakes. I asked them to then reflect on how this experience helped them to further understand the concepts.
I have learned that I will still have those students who will not go the extra mile to help themselves but they are few and far between. The majority of my students were eager to share their findings with the class. I also shared this with my parents during conferences last night. Often, parents say they can no longer help their children with the homework because they don't remember how to do it or math just wasn't their thing. I explained my strategy and found parents to be very receptive and some were even relieved to have found a solution to the constant "I didn't do my homework because I don't know how". They have no excuse for not doing the research and trying on their own. I plan to share this experience with my colleagues.
I am adjusting my GAME plan daily, it depends on each lesson and how it was received. At this time we are gearing toward putting it all together so we may begin working on the final presentations. I will say that other Algebra II teachers were looking at my student’s work and commented that my students work was much better then their students were. I am hoping to be able to put this lesson into a solid format with assessments and rubrics in order to share with the department.
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Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear that your students are finding success utilizing the Internet as a self-help tool. Teaching students how to locate and use resources in an effort to help themselves succeed can be challenging. After your students locate these resources, perhaps you can have them linked on a class website, blog, or wiki. The students could even be the ones to post the websites.
My students could benefit from learning how to use the Internet to locate English resources that can help them learn grammar and writing skills. Since this worked well with your math students, I think I will have my students seek for resources covering verbals, my next grammar unit.
Thanks for the idea.
Brad Feick
HS English
Walden University
Using the Internet as a self-help tool seems very convenient for some students to consult as they self-evaluate their work. Could you share some interesting comments that the students made? Were there any surprising comments that caused you to reconsider discontinuing the use of the self-help tool? I am really learning so much from you and my colleagues about practical ways to engage students in monitoring their own learning. I bet your confidence must have soared when your colleague made that positive observation from your students’ progress. Continue to network with your colleagues to make even more profound contributions to nation building.
ReplyDeleteHi.
ReplyDeleteUsing the Internet as a self-help tool sounds great! It's a tool they can use no matter where they are! Did you give your students a list of specific websites? How are your kids responding to this assignment? Is there anything that you will do differently the next time you use this format?
Digs
I like Brad's idea of having a common place like a wiki or blog for students to place the websites they have found and share their learning with each other. Students basicly commented on the difficulty understanding some sites,(math is difficult to read) but the tutorials are helpful for those students. I encourage them to find other sites that may explain differently and clarify for them. I did not give out specific websites because I wanted the to search each topic they needed additional help in. I will however, introduce them to the illuminations site offered by NCTM. I plan to use this site to help me with the initial instruction.
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