COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN THE MATH CLASSROOM THROUGH BLOGGERJANICE LEE’S E-LEARNING INITIATIVE

SUMMARY OF INITIATIVE

• Blogger as a tool to further collaborative and constructivist learning in the classroom

• Forum for discussion

• Community Building

• Opportunity to refine and revise ideas for greater confidence and pride in work

NEED

• Cooperative learning is an essential component of classroom structure

• Nonetheless, struggle with having full participation from all the students

• Hesitant about sharing ideas with one another likely stems from a weak sense of community and lack of confidence in one’s insight or ideas.

• Students greatly dependent on teacher as a result, limiting opportunities for full constructivist learning

AUDIENCE

• All 11th grade Geometry students at Benjamin Franklin High School

• Total of 55 students taking the course

• Opportunity to share mathematical conclusions with families to engage them in their learning

OUTCOMES

• My two sections of Geometry will be able to:

• Formulate and share their ideas for different mathematical concepts following an exploration

• Access group mate’s ideas

• Engage in an exchange that will allow students to ultimately reach some conclusion or rule about the underlying math concept

PLATFORM – BLOGGER

PLATFORM - BLOGGER

• Blogger is an easy-to-use online resources where users can quickly create blogs and generate feedback

• Useful in education because Blogger makes it easy for students to share perspectives on education content, collaborative with others on knowledge-formation, and get feedback from others.

• Additionally, students can connect to other social media channels and keep an online journal that documents their learning

BROAD PLAN

• Initiative will take place during the fourth quarter (April 22 – May 30, 2014). This short trial period will ensure that year-long implementation for the 2014 – 2015 will be prepared.

• During the initiative, participants will:

• Engage in a community building exercise where participants share personal information and comment on their peer’s posts.

• Post a written response of individual initiative ideas or observations of some mathematical pattern or data

• Post comments to teammate’s posts and provide feedback

• Synthesize the mathematical rule for the group

• Browse other group’s responses and ideas.

FACILITATOR EXPECTATIONS

• Post instructions and checklists for each assignment

• Monitor group and team discussions

• Provide feedback to groups and to individual posts

• Highlight exemplar posts and exchanges between students

PARTICIPANT EXPECTATIONS

• Participate in assignments by posting observations and conclusions

• Engage with teammates and provide commentary on their ideas

• Utilize math conversation stems and formal language

• I’m trying to find _____

• I’m confused because ___

• The way I solved this problem was ___

• Another strategy for solving this problem is ______

• This reminds me of _____

• The error in my strategy was ____

• Respect each student’s work

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS

• By the end of the initiative, all Geometry students will…

• Have created a blogger account

• Provide individual information in an ‘About Me’ post and respond to peer’s ‘About Me’ posts.

• Document their observations of mathematical phenomena and respond to their group mate’s posts

• Share the blogger with family members to invest them in their learning progress.

CONCLUSION

• E-learning initiative will improve collaboration in the classroom and dependence on the students for knowledge formation as opposed to on the teacher.

• Feedback and ideas can be provided through class’s discussion board or directly to me at jnlee89@gmail.com