Comparing Your World

Summary, Description, Rationale, Budget, Potential Impact, Evaluation

Budget = $2,495.00

Proposal Summary

            Many skills are learned as a person enters a new job and each new job only allows for one to build on their previous knowledge, expanding their abilities and furthering their adaptability.  Why make our students wait until they get a job to learn the skills of the world?  Instead let’s teach them through the science and mathematics that they are already learning.  This will not only increase their knowledge of the subject fields, but also increase their abilities to conquer the unknown whether it is a new job, new friends, public speaking, or just simply the dreaded state tests.

            The students exposed to this project Comparing Your World will learn how to view their world a little differently.  They will look at the small vs. the big, comparing different aspects of their world, finding the best solutions in problem solving, and increasing their knowledge of computers within the field of research and e-mail.  This project will increase their adaptability to new situations, allowing for self-motivation when confronted with the unknown as they are led through random projects building on what they know to discover what they do not know.

            The students through this project will be better prepared to take standardized tests and are projected to make higher scores on the state tests with an increase in college interest.  Encouraging this project will set our students into the world to think independently, creating new paths and changing our world for the better.

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Description

            In order to tackle as many issues in this project, several topics will be explored.  They will all be within the same theme of estimation, proportions, patterns, and problem solving.

The students’ bridges will be in a competition with each other and there will be winners in multiple categories that the students themselves will determine beforehand.  In addition to the classroom competition, there will be a larger competition between classes where the average of one class will be compared to the other classes to determine an overall winner.

In order to work on research skills and speaking in public (classroom), there will be a mini project of a debate.  In this debate there will be 5 or 6 situations/dilemmas and 6 students (2 teams) will be studying only one situation.  On the day of the actual debates the teams of 3 students each will enter the classroom and draw a slip of paper with the word pro or con that will determine which side of the debate they will be arguing.  In order to research their specific situation the groups will have access to the internet and will also be required to talk to two adults of which only one can be a parent/guardian in order to get a real-world point of view.  The dilemmas will cover topics such as future schooling, jobs, salary, or families, etc. vs. money, time, families, or location, etc.

The concept map, which is a student’s representation of the connection of math concepts, can expand as new topics arise.  It can also be developed on their own in the future as they how topics that they learn could be linked to those that they already know.

            One task that the students will be doing is a Problem Recognition Task where students are given sample situations in which they need to identify the problems in the solutions, or the process to the solution, and explain how to correct each one.  Letting students find problems in the real world and justify their answers will cement their knowledge a little more in the subject area and will let the teacher evaluate if they have truly learned the topics.  As a teacher this can magnify which problems the students are having and the teacher can revisit the problem areas.  Some of the situations in the project will include: determining incorrect estimations (units or size), assessing whether an answer is reasonable for the given problem, deciding what is logical to come next in a given pattern, and looking at distortion or proportion topics.

Several of the mini projects will require that students build an object or solve a problem that has no perfect answer but can be approached in multiple ways with multiple answers that are close to an actual solution.  These projects are meant to expand the students’ imagination, which will help in approaching solutions in multiple ways.  They are also aids to the typical issue of “thinking outside of the box.”

The adaptability of this project is high.  This project can be broken up into several parts by the nature of it, which will help to fit it into a teacher’s lesson plans.  It can be hard to completely block out a month within the semester to devote to one project, and the layout of this project allows for teachers to work around the given schedule and still be able to use the full project without losing the end results.  This project can also be extended or condensed given the specific time restraints.  Whereas some of the mini projects depend on previous lessons, the order of the lessons and projects can be changed according to the abilities of the students.

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Rational

            It’s understandable if middle school or high school students do not know how to estimate, but there is no excuse when adults and even college students do not know how to estimate a tip, tax, splitting a bill, or the total of the groceries in their own cart.  People may ignore or deny the need for math, but how often do we hand off the tab to the “math person” at the table to determine the tax?  Estimation is in fact an important part of our lives.  However, one can never prepare for every situation in life.  Yet given the tools, students will be able to go out into their community, college, and future/current jobs better prepared for random problems thrown in their path.  Having an understanding of restrictions in time, materials, money, etc. affects a person’s success in his/her relationships, jobs, schooling, etc.  Whether a student continues onto college or not, these skills need to be introduced, improved and implemented.  When the students build bridges, as one of the projects, they not only will be learning time management, but more importantly they will be working in an environment that requires that they balance cost vs. quality of production.

            Real world situations are virtually never clear-cut with easy answers, but complicated, confusing and stressful.  Within the context of a debate simulating these real-life situations, the students will begin to explore the topics on both the pro and con side of the given situation and in the final debate they will be required to rationalize their decisions.  Peer relationships, stage fright, and impromptu argumentations are not typically associated with mathematics in grade school, yet these issues are expected as well as assessed in college and the work place.  So beginning with students now, their confidence will increase in these areas to prepare them for similar future situations.

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Potential Impact

            The skills explored and improved in this project will include but are not limited to independent thinking, self-motivation, real-world problem solving, and finding multiple paths to the same solution which will help in daily life, test taking, future classes and future/current jobs.  When taking a test, students have either seen the given problems or not.  Students will typically be able to reproduce a problem that they have seen before.  However, if a student does not understand the topic covered or the processes required to compute the answer then the student may be able to reproduce a problem/solution they have already seen but have a very small chance in finding the solution to a problem they have not seen before.  In this project students will be exploring new situations in which they must find their own solutions instead of relying on the teacher and therefore improving their ability to independently explore the unknown in a school setting.  So instead of encouraging short-term memory, these students will be able to forget what they memorized and still be able to come to a valid solution by their own conjectures.

During the course of this project the students will be working on several mini-projects that will allow for the project to progress at the same pace of the students and also will allow the students to develop skills on one day that can be defined and used  in the next few projects.

The project will be handled on a classroom basis with about 30 students in each class and a total of one teacher’s 5 classes.  This accounts for a total of 150 students.  For each mini project, the students will be placed in groups of 2 or 3.  So there will be about 10-15 groups per class for a total of 75 groups for all the classes combined.

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Evaluation Plan

Since this program will be acted out like the typical school day with worksheets and quizzes/tests, then the type of assessment will likewise be different.  Given the differences in the activities, there will be several types of assessments.

            There is a rubric for each of the large activities (building bridges, pro/con debate, and concept maps), in addition to a rubric for overall participation and work that will each count for 20% of the project grade.  The last 20% will be compromised of the grades received on the homeworks during the course of the project.  The project as a whole will count for 25% of the semester grade.

            Within these rubrics, the students will be graded on topics other than their math skills.  The topics will include presentation, research data, group work, participation, time management, clarity in content, etc.  The grading of these topics will not take away from the other math assessments that are necessary to the student’s understanding of the curriculum, but instead add to the overall abilities of the students, making them well-rounded and better prepared for future tests, assignments and projects.  The grading for projects that include a presentation will be graded on presentation as well as content.

In addition to the teacher assessing the students, there will be a couple of short activities that allow for the students to give feedback to the teacher and essentially assess the teacher and the project itself.  These assessments will not be graded and will be as anonymous as possible including handouts, a comments box with written questions, e-mails and other forms of communication that do not reveal the student’s identity unless the student chooses to reveal himself.  These responses will be used to help lead the class in the most productive manner for not only the teacher but the students as well.

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Budget

 

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