Book Description

The study took place in an Algebra 1 class with mostly ninth grade students at an urban private school. The research focused on twenty students, one who was an English Language Learner whose primary language was Spanish. These students had varying mathematical skills, and mostly relied on procedure to solve math problems. The objective of the intervention was to increase conceptual knowledge. Intervention and Data: Over the course of three months I took baseline data and completed an intervention. I took observational field notes in class, recording how much students were participating and what kinds of activities they were doing. I took pre and post student achievement data for each of the four activities. Student achievement data included both homework and test problems. During the intervention, students did four activities on four different topics that students were currently learning. Activities scaffolded students with how to solve a problem and write a good explanation for how and why. For the first two activities, students were given a math problem along with different explanations of how to solve the problem. Students were to figure out which explanation was best. For the third activity, students were given a math problem and its solution and were expected to write down how and why each step was being done. For the fourth activity, students were given two math problems and were asked to write a solution to each problem, and then explain how and why they did each step. After each activity, students got feedback on their responses from a partner, and filled out a survey on the activity. Results: Students' problem solving skills and explanation skills increased after doing the intervention. Students developed different roles during the activity between partners, becoming readers, listeners, questioners, or leaders. Also student achievement of the English Language Learner increased.