With my inquiry well underway in the Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 classes, I have been trying to incorporate a variation of activities that encourage students to engage in different ways. Some students, as I have observed, thrive in an environment where there is strictly practice based on notes they have taken; other students really struggle to engage in any way with this style of activity. Thus in this lesson to be discussed, the Algebra 2 students were introduced to polynomial functions through a self-guided inquiry using Desmos graphing software. The activity prompted students to observe and describe the shapes and features of polynomial graphs to submit online, where the entire class could access all of the observations. I thought this activity would do a nice job showcasing all students’ thinking and meaning making based on a very open-ended activity.
My Penn Mentor was in class conducting an observation during this class, and her observational notes provided me with some keen insights into how the class was actively (or passively) participating throughout the lesson. As shown in the observation notes, there are several moments throughout the lesson where the number of students on task was noted. The lesson began with our typical routine of an approximately 10 minute warm-up problem and review of the problem; at this point the majority of the class was on task and participating in this problem either individually or collaboratively with their classmates sitting around them in the U-Shape arrangement. Following the review of the process for the warm-up, students were given a few minutes to check over their homework using the provided answers. As my Penn Mentor noted, only about 13/21 students were engaged in this part of the class. While reviewing my mentor’s notes, this observation had me think about alternate ways for homework review that may involve more of the students or make the activity more engaging – perhaps creating some sort of incentive for students who ask questions about the homework from peers or myself. After reviewing some of the problems that were specifically asked about by the students, the class transitioned into the online exploration of polynomials. At the start of the activity, it was noted that the majority of the students appeared to be on task, about 16 out of 21; however, some students were slow to engage but after a few minutes almost all students were noted to be involved in the investigation. As my classroom mentor and I circulated the classroom, I noticed that several groups of students were working together in a very positive way. There seemed to be lots of collaboration between students who not only sat directly next to each other in the U-Shape, but also those in front or behind them. As my Penn Mentor also noted, “U-Shaped seating arrangement allows ST & CM to have adequate room to work with individual students.” I found that this arrangement worked very well for this type of inquiry activity, where students had several questions about the unfamiliar information. This shape promoted and openness to the classroom; there was space for each student to be accessible as an individual, but classmates could work together to understand each stage of the activity and bounce ideas off of each other. After seeing the success of this activity, I was very interested to find out how the students felt about this seating arrangement for other lessons in class. I planned to later ask the students a variety of questions that not only provided a review of the arrangement alone, but also in comparison to previously sitting in groups of four students. These comparisons will help to best inform my conclusions for my line of inquiry.
1 Comment
Sarah Poncz
3/24/2016 09:25:54 am
I'm glad that my notes help to inform your inquiry.
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Author20 something year old. Pittsburgh native. Pennsylvania explorer. Graduate student. Aspiring teacher. Archives
March 2016
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