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Written Communication in Math
Reflection
Impact of Action Research
Student Learning
Along with improving their math communication skills and achievement, students gained and grew in many other areas. Through the implementation of intentional written and oral communication strategies during math, students learned how to better communicate their mathematical understanding to others. Using these communication skills and strategies in math provided students with the opportunity to develop their math vocabulary and underlying comprehension of the concepts being taught. In their math journals, they would write about their ideas and steps they took when approaching a problem. They were able to use the specific feedback to make corrections and deepen their understanding of the skills or concept. This helped them improve their ability to elaborate on their thinking as well. It was much easier to have impactful and deep discussions with my class as their ability to write and talk about math grew. Prior to my study, it was common for students to need assistance during work time or explain their mathematical thinking because they were unable to verbalize or write their ideas or steps they took down. For example, at the beginning of each topic, new concepts, skills, strategies and vocabulary are introduced. This is a lot for students to take in all at once. Often students were not getting the opportunity to engage with their thinking on a deeper level of understanding. I believe that focusing on communicating our ideas and thinking helped not only in math, but in their school skills of working through problems and their communication skills. Their level of thinking improved as they got more familiar with writing and talking about math. They were able to use math vocabulary accurately and explain their ideas in depth, allowing others to understand what they did and why. This growth, I feel, occurred both because of the gradual release and modeling of writing and talking about math; as throughout the study, they continued to practice and gain deeper understandings of new skills and concepts.
Current Teaching
Although I learned a lot about how to implement change in my classroom, I also learned to better my planning, improve my ability to seek out enrichment/supplemental opportunities, how to become more aware of student attitudes, and strengthen my ability to identify needs. Prior to beginning my study, my math lessons consisted of following our district's math curriculum pacing guides, utilizing curriculum website videos, using scripts from the manual, and having students play curriculum-based games. I depended on the lessons provided with little or only slight deviations. When I began focusing more on the math communication piece, I started seeking activities to push my students to engage with math vocabulary and more opportunities to write and think about math that the curriculum did not include. I found math journals with prompts that were engaging and truly got students to think deeper about the math they were learning. These prompts were written so that they aligned with concepts and math vocabulary that was being taught and used in the classroom daily.Before my study I was able to observe and note students’ weaknesses or strengths, but my study gave me the tools to more specifically note needs and a scale on which to show the range of my students. I feel this was a major piece of how focusing on communicating about math has impacted my instruction.
Professional Growth
While completing my study, I grew professionally by communicating and collaborating with my peers in CADRE, professors, colleagues, and district staff. Collaboration was a big piece of my study. I discussed my study with my third-grade team, and we exchanged many ideas such as what prompts to use and what strategies would be purposeful and engaging. This helped to broaden my ideas and discover new ideas that might work well in my classroom. I utilized my instructional coach who helped give me ideas used from other classrooms and suggestions of vocabulary activities that would be engaging. My CADRE associate helped implement my study by gathering data and co-teaching math with me. When she was able to be in my room, she would collect data regarding the level of questions I was using or data on students’ level of understanding on concepts, so I could use this data along with math journal entries to create homogeneous groups throughout my study. All these factors impacted my professional growth because it taught me how to seek help and receive criticism in a useful growth-oriented mindset. For my study, I also sought out research to help determine how to go about my study. I had the idea of communication in and about math based on the needs in my classroom, but research told me how to go about it and why. Obtaining research is a form of professional growth because it pushed me to implement research-based strategies to better my teaching. As a teaching professional, there will always be more research to learn from to help identify student needs.
Learned
I learned that utilizing math communication strategies for my third graders impacted their learning and increased their math achievement and level of understanding. I also learned the process of implementing math communication into my daily lesson plans. The lessons shifted from mostly whole group instruction with some time for individual, small group or partner work to having more time for intentional homogeneous groups to meet with me to support those students where they were at. Looking back, I loved how much it has benefitted their learning and I am a better teacher for it. Although the study is completed, I still had a few questions. The first math topic covered during the study was multiplication and division. I wondered if we began with a different topic, would it have been more difficult to implement? Multiplication and division were somewhat familiar for my students because we had already completed a previous unit on these topics. I started my study at the end of January and I wonder if there would have been different results if I was able to start the study earlier in the year or if they would not have been ready and capable to dive into deeper communication about math earlier. We began discussing what math communication should look and sound like around mid-September after they took their first district Common Formative Assessment. During the study, I learned that collecting data on each student every day is important in order to understand where students are at. For example, if I only collected data before and after the study, I would not have known how students were doing during the study. Collecting data throughout the unit allowed me to know how to help students and meet them where they are at with their understanding. Additionally, throughout the study, I had a lot of assistance from my CADRE associate and third-grade team who brainstormed strategies and prompts for each topic or concept. Without their guidance, implementing intentional and purposeful math communication may have felt overwhelming without having others to share and create ideas with.
Future Teaching
Changed or Modified
As I reflected back on the planning, preparation, and implementation of my study, there are certain things that I would go back to change or modify if I could. When I first discussed and introduced what math communication is to my class, I had sentence stems and a math vocabulary word bank created. These items were introduced to students to help them understand and grasp what math communication should look and sound like. When students began to write about math independently, I had to ensure they had the tools to do so. Since writing about math can be difficult and challenging, I had to ensure that I was gradually easing them into the process. This took more time than I originally anticipated, because after modeling writing about math, several students were still confused and unprepared to move on to writing with a partner. If I could go back, I would have planned more engaging and explicit modeling opportunities for my students so they would have gotten to individual writing sooner. However, the time for my study was limited, but I believe these more engaging and explicit communication activities would have benefited my students and allowed for more growth and practice to have happened.
Future Thinking: Behavior or Interacting
Moving forward, my thinking will be more positive and intentional about identifying the needs in my classroom. Instead of approaching student needs with fear and anxiety about failing to support them, I will make it an opportunity to grow and improve. In the future, I will seek new opportunities to create the best learning environment for my students and challenge myself to step out of the comfort zone. I want to teach with a passion for growth and reflection, in which I hope to instill these in my students as a passion for learning. Throughout my study, the meaningful interactions that I had with colleagues, families, and my students allowed me to gain new perspectives and foster relationships. Going forward, my hope is to continue to broaden my community of mentors and peers to challenge myself to broaden my horizons and continue to grow as an educator.
Impact Future Teaching
Performing action research will impact my future teaching because as I identify an area need in my classroom, I can implement action research to improve it. During the process, it was not as easy to recognize or see the growth that was occurring. However, now that the study it is completed, the evidence is clear on how implementing math communication strategies has contributed to my students' learning. In the future, I hope to become more confident and intentional at identifying an area of need. Most importantly, I need to ensure that I am not shying away from these areas of need, but rather actively pursuing steps to make a change. The process can be long and grueling, but the outcome will be worth it as seen through this study. After this process, I have become much more comfortable reaching out to others and seeking advice on how to improve my own teaching. I am more assured and confident in finding and utilizing research-based strategies to use in the classroom. I have grown in my ability to make connections to these research-based strategies to determine how best implement them into my classroom setting. In the future, I don’t want to become stagnant in my own growth and learning, as that could potentially have negative impacts on my students. This process of completing action research has confirmed for me that research, and therefore my growth as a teacher, will never stop.
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