Tag Archives: Classroom Management

Projects

Barbie Bungee Jumping

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One thing about Math Literacy that people don’t always think about: just changing the material or the emphasis doesn’t make it interesting. Yes, because of the team aspect and the content all being in context, my students are more engaged. But still, doing the same thing everyday, working math problems on paper all the time, becomes routine and boring. It’s really important to find hands-on activities to get them out of their seats.

Barbie BungeeSo, Barbie bungee jumping. I got the idea from an NCTM post. Tie linked rubber bands to Barbie’s feet. Do a few test runs with smaller amounts of rubber bands, create a line of best fit to model the drop distance, then use it to predict the number of rubber bands needed to drop Barbie from a second-story stair landing. The group that gets her closest to the floor without hitting her head wins. (Do post someone to warn passersby!)

We did this the afternoon of the last day before spring break. Not usually a good day for student engagement, but mine had a great time and learned about linear regression
along the way!

Classroom Management

Controlled Chaos?

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I completely embrace the “controlled chaos” that is at the heart of this course. On an ideal day, if you walk past my room, you will hear a loud hum of conversation and will see students gesturing to each other, walking around to other tables, and writing on the board. They get off topic, and that’s ok. They have these incredible conversations that seem tangential, but end up leading back to the heart of the concept. Or they don’t lead back, but end up being really interesting in their own right. That’s an ideal day.

Then there are the not-so-ideal days. I have really been struggling with classroom management this semester. I have six groups of students, and three are functioning well. The other three are functioning at various levels of not great, with some of the group members working individually, and some not at all. I keep coming around and encouraging conversation, telling them they all need to be in the same place, and in one case trying to facilitate conflict management. But they’re fighting me every step of the way. Well, not fighting–they just ignore me. I threaten loss of participation points, give tips for working better as a group…nothing. Half the group gets done, the other half pretends to, and they all leave. They don’t check in with me–I just look up and they’re gone.

What is going on here? I’ve had a dud group here and there in the past, but this is really frustrating me. Clearly I have not made my expectations clear. Or I have, and they don’t care? I try to be easy-going to facilitate a conversational classroom, but apparently this semester that is backfiring. I’ll have to go in tomorrow with a new attitude, and set a more hard-working tone.

I love this course, and I love the group-based pedagogy. But I don’t want to act like things always go perfectly! I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.

Redesign Process and Implementation

Wrapping up the first full-scale semester of Math Literacy

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Whew!  I should have posted long before this, but this first semester has been a whirlwind.   Some background on our redesign (also see the About page):

The short version: Parkland College’s Mathematics Department undertook a developmental mathematics redesign project in the Fall of 2011, as a response to retention issues in College Algebra and Precalculus.  By the Fall of 2012, we had committed to a two-track design, keeping the traditional Beginning and Intermediate Algebra track (redesigned to be more rigorous) for students headed to College Algebra and Calculus, and creating a new Mathematical Literacy course (also rigorous, but with different content) for students headed to Gen Ed Statistics or Liberal Arts Mathematics.  In addition to adding a new track, we also split all of our courses into half-courses.  Essentially this has no impact on the curriculum, simply turning what used to be a midterm grade into an actual grade on their transcript for the first half of the course.  This allows students to start over at midterm if they are not passing after the first half of the course, and to only have to repeat the second half of the course if they are successful in the first half but not the second.

So, an update on our progress and challenges.  After running one pilot section in Fall 2012 and two in Spring 2013, this semester we went full-scale with 13 sections of Math Literacy, plus 5 restarts at midterm.  I am one of two course coordinators, tasked with getting the class up and running, and training new instructors.

Successes

  • This class is different, and students realize that right away
  • Students are working on math instead of falling asleep
  • We’re engaging in applications right from the start, every day, and students are realizing that they can do it
  • Speaking for myself, I feel revived and am loving teaching

Challenges

  • Technology: Students and new instructors alike are expected to learn three different systems (ALEKS for skill homework, Desire2Learn for dropboxes, and Excel) from the first day.  While the Excel work starts small and builds, the other two systems each have their own learning curve.  Learning all three at once is a LOT.  We need a course management system that combines the functionality of ALEKS and Desire2Learn. We are hoping our textbook publisher can come through on this one.
  • Expectations: While students are fully informed by advisors that this class will be different, I’m not sure we’ve done the best job explaining WHY.  We need to be more transparent about our rationale for the pedagogy, the need to engage and learn how to learn, and the reasoning behind each of the assignments.  Students are not seeing how the skills, applications, technology, and reflections pieces all contribute important aspects to the learning process.
  • Support for part-time adjuncts: Some of the above falls on the coordinators.  I’m not sure we have done the best job of communicating all the rationale to our new instructors, so that they can pass that along to their students and teach confidently.  We will be trying to improve a lot in this area, now that the nuts and bolts have been dealt with this first semester.

We have learned a lot, and I am excited to continue this work next semester.