Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Teachers College Educational ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

determine which quantities are unknown and the correct operation to be used in solving the problem (Xin & Zhang, 2009). Students used diagrams, prompts, and checklists as part of the method. Although students in this group participated in the exergame activities, the word problems they received made no mention of the activities, instead focusing on common problem situations (Van de Walle, 2004). Students in all groups were assessed through experimenter made pre- and post-tests. Instructional Embodiment Conceptual Model Mixed Instructional Approach Frank juggled a soccer ball in the air 17 times in a row. His friend Tom juggled the ball 22 times. How many times did they juggle the ball in total? Frank had 17 toy cars in his collection. Tom had 22 toy cars in his collection. How many toys cars have they collected in total? Table 1: Example problem for each group. 19 Frank juggled a soccer ball in the air 17 times in a row. His friend Tom juggled the ball 22 times. How many times did they juggle the ball in total? The Ubisoft Xbox Kinect exergame, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012, is a fitness game that takes place in a data rich environment. The game records performance data on a variety of fitness exercises including calories burned, number of exercises completed, and points for correctly performed exercises. As a result, the game served as an excellent environment from which to develop word problems because it explicitly makes connections between numerical data and physical and perceptual experiences. As an added benefit, exergames such as Your Shape have been shown to enhance executive functioning in children, something that could have a very positive effect on learning (Best, 2011). Research Questions There are three questions this study attempted to explore. First, can an instructionally embodied approach to teaching mathematical problem solving improve student performance? Second, how do the results obtained through this approach compare with those found through the implementation of a Conceptual Model based instruction method? Last, are these two methods of instruction compatible and thus produce the best student performance results? The Experiment Participants were twelve second-grade students from a high-needs urban public school after-school program. Each group contained four students but random assignment was not possible. The program was implemented over eight weeks with participants attending weekly one-hour sessions. During the first week, students learned how to play the exergame and took an experimenter made pre-test. From weeks two through seven, students participated in exergame activities for twenty minutes, received word problem instruction for thirty minutes, and then took a ten minute mini-assessment to gauge progress over time. During week eight, students took part in exergame activities and then completed an experimenter made summative post-test. All questions on both the pre- and post-test were designed according to second-grade ability levels as described in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice (2010). Results Results indicated that all groups made significant improvement from pre- to post-test. While none of the results comparing groups at post-test were statistically significant, students in the mixed group made the most improvement from pre- to post-test. Small sample sizes likely contributed to the lack of statistical significance. This trend however possibly indicates that students in the mixed group benefited from the grounded problem representations from the instructionally embodied approach as well as identifying important structural relations through the use of the diagrams and prompts of the conceptual-model
ased approach. Future research may provide evidence for this claim through an increased sample size and random assignment of students to groups. References Barsalou, L.W. (2010). Grounded cognition: Past, present, and future. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2, 716-724. Best, J. R. (2011). Exergaming Immediately Enhances Children's Executive Function. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a002664 Black, J.B., Segal, A., Vitale, J., and Fadjo, C. (2011). Embodied cognition and learning environment design. In D. Jonassen and S. Lamb (Eds.). Theoretical foundations of student-centered learning environments. New York: Routledge. Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common core state standards for mathematics. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_Math%20Standards.pdf Glenberg, A., Willford, J., Gibson, B., Goldberg, A., & Zhu, X. (2011). Improving Reading to Improve Math, Scientific Studies of Reading, 0, 1-25. Jitendra, A. K. (2008). Using schema-based instruction to make appropriate sense of word problems. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 20-24. Kintsch, W. & Greeno, J.G. (1985). Understanding and solving word arithmetic problems Psychological Review, 92(1), 109-129. Jonassen, D.H. (2003). Designing instruction for story problems. Educational Psychology Review, 15 (3), 267-296. Van de Walle, J. A. (2004). Elementary and middle school mathematics: Teaching developmentally (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Verschaffel, L., Greer, B., & De Corte, E. (2000). Making sense of word problems. Lisse, the Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Xin, Y.P., Wiles, B., Lin, Y.Y. (2008).Teaching Conceptual Model-Based Word Problem Story Grammar to Enhance Mathematics Problem Solving. Journal of Special Education, 42(3), 163-178. Xin, Y. P. & Zhang, D. (2009). Exploring a conceptual model-based approach to teaching situated word problems. The Journal of Educational Research, 102(6), 427-441. 20
Page 1 and 2: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Te
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Math Strategies i
Page 5 and 6: Harnessing the Power of Emotionally
Page 7 and 8: Think Facts introduces four charact
Page 9 and 10: Guidelines for an Online Networking
Page 11 and 12: Mode S = Synchronous A=Asynchronous
Page 13 and 14: Investigating Potential Factors to
Page 15 and 16: Investigating the Effects of Choice
Page 17 and 18: Videogames in Institutional Practic
Page 19 and 20: Youth in the Digital Age: Digital M
Page 21 and 22: Augmenting The Arrival: Students’
Page 23: Connected to Word Problems: Improvi
Page 27 and 28: MOOCs, Open Education, and Implicat
Page 29 and 30: Promoting Healthy Eating Habits Thr
Page 31 and 32: Figure 2: Monster Appetite in actio
Page 33 and 34: This year, the first participant gr
Page 35 and 36: Figure 2: The Aesthetigraph represe
Page 37 and 38: Digital Modeling Artifacts as Geome
Page 39 and 40: Using Weblogs to Increase Language
Page 41 and 42: Total 3 Advanced Performance Level
Page 43 and 44: “Media Literacy in Action: Using
Page 45 and 46: Learning Science Systems with Graph
Page 47 and 48: Liu, L., & Hmelo-Silver, C. E. (200
Page 49 and 50: Applying Physics to the Real World:
Page 51 and 52: Credibility of Culturally Situated
Page 53 and 54: notion that similarity with the use
Page 55 and 56: Duncan, H., Tan, J. (2012). A Visua
Page 57 and 58: Online Learning Environments in Hig
Page 59 and 60: Exploration of concepts to facilita
Page 61 and 62: Exploring the Intersection of Forma
Page 63 and 64: Barab, S. & Squire, K. (2004). Desi
Page 65 and 66: information and the world according
Page 67 and 68: #phdchat: a community of practice o
Page 69 and 70: A Difficult Balance: Regulating Cyb
Page 71 and 72: References Bethel School District v
Page 73 and 74: that children’s photographs were
Page 75 and 76:
A variety of data sources were coll
Page 77 and 78:
control and mastery increased in vi
Page 79 and 80:
Design of computer assisted tools f
Page 81 and 82:
Figure 2: Interactive functions of
Page 83 and 84:
User Experiences with Avatar Custom
Page 85 and 86:
Design Patterns for Promoting Self-
Page 87 and 88:
Cooperative Inquiry in Designing Te
Page 89 and 90:
Implications Our work with CI exten
Page 91 and 92:
References Allen, E., & Seaman, J.
show all

Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Teachers College Educational ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?