Research Question: What impact does prompted math journaling have on student understanding of Algebra concepts? How do students feel about math journaling and what are the effects on their perceived math abilities?
Participants: Algebra I or Algebra II students- the entire class and a small group of 5-7 students who will be formally interviewed
Methodology: Mixed methods – both qualitative and quantitative research
Measures: - Artifacts: Writing samples in the form of tickets out the door, warm-ups, homeworks, and test/quiz questions
- Interview: pre-test and post-test survey using a Likert-type scale to assess students’ attitudes about their math abilities, survey using a Likert-type scale to assess students’ attitudes towards math journaling, formal one on one tape recorded interviews with 5-7 students to assess their feelings towards math journaling and how it has affected their confidence in their math abilities
- Observations: Note taking during and after writing activities
How I will analyze data: Calculate the mean, average, and standard deviation for all surveys – this information will reveal how the students feel about math journaling and gauge their confidence levels in their math skills. I will organize writing samples by each student and evaluate the content of conceptual math understanding on each assignment. Each assignment will be graded, so I can use Excel or another statistical software tool to find the rate of improvement for each student, the class as a whole, etc. I will use this information to see if students improve their math understanding and reasoning skills with increased practice in math journaling. I will also transcribe the tape recorded formal interviews and highlight key excerpts and keep these transcripts in my research notebook. My notes will also be highlighted for key ideas and observations. All of this data will be brought together to convey as completely as possible the answer to my research question.
This looks great and very thorough. I'm very intrigued by the similarities in our research and look forward to comparing our results. We seem to have very similar goals with different approaches. I really like that you are planning on tracking student improvement. After reading so much about assessment, I learned that the biggest problem is that every teacher does it but rarely uses it to actually affect instruction or to measure the affect of something they are doing in their classroom, as you will be doing.
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