Journey in Becoming a Math Teacher

As a future math teacher, it is important to know technology since the students will be using graphic calculators which as a form of technology. In the math regent exams, it is mandatory for high school students to use graphic calculators. During the semester, I attended a Math Seminar in the math department room, where the professor spoke about the uses of the graphic calculators. From this, I read an article about the use of graphic calculators called Factors leading to the adoption of a learning technology: The case of graphics calculators (http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ926494&site=ehost-live)

In this article, the researchers stated that technology allows students to enhance their “spatial-visualization” skills, connect mathematical concepts, and bring a greater understanding in certain topics such as functions and graphing. In their study, they created a questionnaire to see how the teachers reacted in involving graphic calculators in the classrooms. As a result, the researchers concluded that the teachers are aware of calculators and how those can be used to create visual learning (ex: graphing) but some don’t believe in using them as a tool for students because it will decrease the students thinking process or basically “dumbing down”. Moreover, the study shows lack of faculty support and training in order for teachers to be adapted to graphic calculators.

From this article, I agree that graphic calculators should be used, but with certain modifications. As a high school student, there are ways of misusing a graphic calculator. Some graphic calculators have programs that you can store information like say the questions and answers to a test, and it will appear on the calculator. For the traditionalists’ point of views, meaning how the teachers who learned without calculators see it, graphic calculators will cause the student to be reliant on it to answer any problem, no matter if it is simply or not. I do agree with this statement, but isn’t that why teachers are there to help adjust the use of technology in their classrooms? If you see a high school student doing a 15+15 problem, then you know that you will need to limit the use of calculators.

The purpose of the graphic calculators is to broaden the students’ perspectives in mathematics. The student may want to see how the equation would look like and therefore use the graphic calculator to show the particular equation. I remember as a freshman in college, who was taking Pre-calculus, the teacher would show us how to use the calculators and how to draw the equations. When we draw the equations, we notice a certain shape and it may form into a smile face or a stick figure. This way of teaching attracts students to learn something new and may apply it for future use.

Example of Graphing an Equation:

So far, I have written about the uses and effects of technology in classrooms. The previous article was about English Language Learners (ELL) in elementary schools. In a journal article called, Application of a Model for the Integration of Technology in Kindergarten: An Empirical Investigation in Taiwan (http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=71106929&site=ehost-live), they discussed the issue of present technological models that cannot satisfy the teacher’s needs in kindergarten classrooms. It is interesting that at such a young age that they would learn about technology in a classroom. Then again, I should not be surprised since in today’s society, we are all influenced by society.

This study was designed to create a model of “computer integration.” This model consists of eight tool kits which are constructed based on the analysis on data collected from actual interviews and observations in Taiwan’s kindergarten. The research shows that teachers have attitudes and experiences about technology which plays a factor into why technology does no satisfy their needs. Therefore, there are technological models to make it easier for the teacher to introduce technology in the classrooms.

In the research, they focused on eight tool kits: Storytelling, Motivation, Group discussion, Drill, Game, Instruction, Portfolio making, and Evaluation. In storytelling, the teachers use technology to present the story using visual and sound like the digital picture books or just read the book but display the characters and the sounds as the teachers reads. Teachers use the special effects of the software to promote motivation in the students like creating a problem or a conflicted situation that would be presented on the projecting screen. Teachers used technology to promote group discussions on a certain event. (ex: the seasons) Teacher also use computer gaming to promote learning in the kindergarten classrooms. For instructional use, the teachers create spider webs to show instructional structure. To show parents on how their child is progressing in class, the teachers create portfolios to collect documentations of the child’s daily progress. As for reflection, the teachers assess the students by providing visual images and ask the students to identify the answer. For Example: The visual of the question and images:

In conclusion, the researchers stated that teachers use technology for administrative needs. From this I noticed that generally all of the eight tool kits provide visual aid. Also if a child is blind, then the auditory can be a replacement. The integration of teachers and technology has a large increase. I know a professor today who has a lot of years in the teaching and had to learn how to use technology to keep up the advances of the present classrooms. Technology is a good educational tool to help in the classrooms and will make help ease the workload of the teacher by creating excel and using the functions to provide the total and average of the students’ assessed scores. 

As a future math teacher, I need to obtain knowledge on how to use technology in today’s schools. I do agree that technology should be implemented as a tool to the curriculum. When I was a student at John Dewey High School, the majority of the students used calculators for math. To me, the only technology that can be used in math classrooms is calculators. The use of computers in math classrooms is just for additional use to search for a math theory or to use it as a replaceable calculator. In my first reflection, I wrote about an elementary English Language Learner (ELL) student who was just playing the math game but not getting the learning that she needed. So I have investigated further and found a journal article called Classroom Observation of Teaching and Learning with Technology in Urban Elementary School Mathematics Classrooms Serving English Language Learners (http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=73332415&site=ehost-live) which was about the researchers from State of Texas Education Research Center creating a study on how technology affects the ELL students in elementary schools. Since the topic is about technology for ELL students, I would agree that computers should be used more for them under teachers’ supervisions.

In this article, it stated that the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 set a goal that every student should be technologically literate by the eighth grade, regardless of student background or family socioeconomic status. Therefore math educators were encouraged to implement technology in their curriculum by using calculators, spreadsheets and other educational software because it will help the students in “organizing, modeling, and analyzing mathematical results.”

The purpose of the study was to focus on the issue of technology in classrooms and see if technology would be a tool for ELL students in a math classroom. This was conducted in three urban elementary schools with low income students. Using the Classroom Observation Measure (COM) to “measure the extent to which instructional processes or strategies were used by teachers during instruction,” the researchers observed and evaluated the math classrooms on “classroom organization, classroom activities, teacher role, teaching area, evaluation strategies and quality of the lesson.” As a result, the researchers found that an average classroom has about 3 computers and only one of them was turned on. The students barely used computers and sometime used calculators meaning that technology had none to minimal use in math classrooms and that teachers used more direct instructions. This showed that many teachers have no idea on how to integrate technology into instruction. The researchers pointed out that, “The use of technology for students with various cultural and linguistic backgrounds, however, offers teachers the ability to individualize instruction so that it can focus on student’s interests and respond to their individual learning needs.” In conclusion, the study showed that teachers in general should include technology in their lesson plans to help promote individual instruction to the students.

I wrote in my first reflection about an ELL student who used the computer to play online math games. At first I was happy about how the use of technology has improved. Later on, I noticed the issues about technology in classrooms. When it came to Math time, the teacher would tell the ELL student to go straight to the computer and play the game. As the teacher is teaching the class, the student will play the games of her choice; but once in a while, the ELL student will not pay attention to the game and would watch the teacher teaching the class. One of the issues is the student’s understanding to the game. I do not think she received the appropriate information from the online math games. Another issue is the lack of student-teacher interaction in using computer games. I understand that the teacher has an overload of things to do, but this teacher barely comes up to the ELL student to see if the child understood the material or not. Therefore, teachers should approach the ELL student to explain why this game is good for math or for any subject. For urban area, there’s a financial issue on buying computers. These schools don’t have the appropriate funding and have limited resources; that is why they have to do direct instruction and be traditional by writing on the board with chalk.  These issues do have an effect on how technology can be used in classrooms not just for ELL but also for special needs and general too.

As a future math teacher, I would implement both traditional and technological tools (other than the calculator.) The reason for this is so that the students wouldn’t be obsessed with using technology. An example of the implementation is that I would write on the board (not a SMARTBoard, but a chalk board) and ask students to come up (using colorful chalk) to write their answers. The students would be allowed to check on their calculators to see if they got the answer right. At the end, the students would be assigned to go home and either use the computer to do research paper on a particular mathematician, or have daily assignments on a website that I would create in order for the student to view examples on topics that they may have missed and submit an assignment online.

From the NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition (http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf), it is clear that technology has evolved in the use of education. When I was 9 years old, my teacher gave my parents educational PC Games like Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit. I loved playing these games and I was learning how to add and subtract too! Today, students in elementary schools are being taught by using SMARTboards. In college, we are now using Nook or the Ipad in order to download an E-book of our textbook (if it’s available) in order to save money. The Report speaks about six emerging technologies such as cloud computing, mobiles (like the Ipad), game-based learning (which I mentioned about Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit), open content, learning analytics and personal learning environment.

Cloud Computing is used in colleges today. For math classes, the students use Pearsons Math Lab, where the students go online and do the homework that the teacher has posted. The Math Lab online help them by providing hints and there’s a link to send an email to write to the professor. CUNY students use Blackboard in order to obtain homeworks, find their grades, do discussions, and much more. Students and teachers  use Youtube and Google in order to find out how to solve their problems online. Some are free and others will need to be paid in order to get the service.

Mobiles have been increasing since the creation of the cellphone. Now it has turned from a regular phone to a multifunctional phone that can scan a picture, take a picture, store memory (for documents, music and etc.), listen to music/audio, watch movies, go online and more functions. The use of mobiles in educational are to be like books (using a tablet to read the passage). Why waste money on a book that you may read it once when you can just buy a nook and download some free ebooks? Nook or a tablet like the Ipad are used to replace the textbooks if available online. I remember there was a student in my Italian class and he was reading his textbook on an Ipad. This saves some money for textbooks. Although the tablets are expensive, it’s a one time purchase. Some ebook are free and other will not, but they are much cheaper than the textbook.

As I have said before, Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit were my favorite educational PC games. These are examples of educational game-based learning that help the students explore and experiment their subject of choice and help correct the wrong answer of some question/challenge. In today’s classrooms, some ESL students are using game-based education online to help learn how to read and speak English. I did fieldwork at an elementary school and saw that an ESL student, who speaks French, was playing games that are in English. She was learning how to put the words together and how the word sounds like. I believe that math game-based education can be applied to anyone since the objective is clear. For example, a French and a Jamaican can view the same problem 1+1 and they would know that the answer would be 2 because mathematics is universal and no matter how it was taught, the answer would be the same.

Open content is mostly used if there’s limited sources in the school. For example, a student with a Nook can share it with another student or when two students are in one computer. Although educators don’t use this method often due to sufficient amount of resources,  in other countries like Africa, students have to share books, share computers and more. It’s pretty much just having free resources to help the students learn.

Learning analytics are now being used in elementary school. During the time of my fieldwork studies, students are using an online assessment program in which they do an assessment and the teacher will see what areas the students are in need of improvement. Since this is online, the teacher gives the student a code for the parents to log in online and see their son/daughter’s score and the places that are need of improvement so that they can get involve with their child’s study as well. This is like a Blackboard: the students hand in an assignment online, the teacher posts it on the grade section so that the student can see it.

Based on the report, personal learning environments is not necessarily a technology, but “an approach or process that is individualized by design.” This reminds me of the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an education philosopher who believed that a child should have “open education” and have an environment where the child can develop his/her experiments, exploration and observation in their own pace since each child is different in learning processing. Let the students be the teachers of their own education.

Teachers are now using technologies in classrooms whether they are showing a skit from YouTube or a reading the NYPost online, or viewing photos from World War II from Google Images. Technology in education  is going to continue to increase because it’s less money to waste. My only fear from this is that technology will be so excelled and the students would only know how to type than to write in pencil or pen. I know I’m sounding extreme, but we can’t expect the unexpected and maybe it may happen.

I would implement some use of technology by showing a YouTube clip or have them create PowerPoint of what they have learned. I would be more old fashion by having them write their homeworks and handing in to me personally so I would know who actually did do the homework instead of a computer telling me so. I hope that the students are actually learning by using them then just have them sit and play their games that may not even help them learn.