How does guided discovery instruction impact students’ achievement in, and attitudes toward, math?
I want to develop a unit plan for the class I am student teaching that will allow the students to discover the content and form their own knowledge instead of the traditional method of direct instruction. I will guide the students by asking probing questions but rely on classroom discussion, brainstorming, and student discovery, with the appropriate use of technology, to teach the material. I will design a pre- and post-test to measure the students’ achievement. I am also interested in how this different approach affects their attitudes towards math. Do the students feel more empowered having discovered the material as a class instead of being “talked at” by a teacher? Do they prefer one instruction method over another? These attitudes will be measured by a Likert scale survey, as well as interviews and focus groups. I will also keep my own reflections and observations.
I think that guided discovery seems like it would be really effective in getting students motivated. I think that it would also help students have a more positive perception of what they are learning. When they are discovering the concepts through their own cognitive power, they build confidence in their mathematical ability while they built their ability to reason and think analytically. I think it's also good that you are looking both at changes in achievement and also perception, kind of the quantitative-qualitative combo. That's good though, because so much of how effective any kind of practice is depends on how the students perceive it and whether they perceive it as effective, so it's good to analyze both measures.
ReplyDeleteGuided discovery is a very important pedagogical tool. I wonder if you really want to say that the entire unit will be taught by this method. It may be more realistic to say that this instructional method will be used extensively throughout the unit..that will leave you the option of direct instruction on occasion. That is probably the way it should mix. I will be interested to read the related research you find.
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