Action
Research Project Title: Warm-ups to
improve math problem solving skills and math readiness
Blog
URL: http://www.kristeneckerman.blogspot.com
Number
of AR Project Documented Hours: 3 hours
AR
Project Summary (at least 250 words):
By the second week of school I was able to get a student and teacher survery completed. These surveys helped to determine whether students were ready for math problem solving each and every day and determine where they stand on math and how they view it. I was then able to pick a handful of students that I wanted to use for my plan. These students failed the STAAR math test in 3rd grade and from their survey, did not enjoy math and had very negative reviews toward it.
Then for the next two
weeks I gave students a math warmup in their journals 3 days out of the week
for 3 weeks now. They had 15 minutes to
complete the warm-up and then we went over them together. These problems consist of different math
skills that take problem solving strategies.
Lots of times 2 to 3 steps are needed in order to solve the
problem. These are not looking great
right now. There is very minimal work
done and students often get stuck on the question and not knowing what to do
next. When I total up the time we have
spent working on this action research it has only been about 45 minutes a week
for 3 weeks, so approximately 2 ½ to 3 hours.
Students however are also getting their regulary daily math lessons that
also involve problem solving much of the time.
It hasn’t been long enough to truly see an increase in problem solving
with these students. We did have our
first CBA over place value problem solving, but this was a little too soon to
really see if these students are being successful and improving in problem
solving. By our first benchmark in December I am hoping to see dramatic
changes, for the better. I will also
take another survery in December to see if students’ views on math have changed
any. My hopes are that by seeing and
solving problem often, students will not only get better at them, but will
start having confidence in their abilitles and this in turn will change their
opinions of math. Hopefully, starting to
enjoy the subject and maybe even look forward to it a bit.
