Improving Student Learning: Cooperation, Technology, and Assessment

This week we explored several different topics in math: cooperative games, the use of technology in student activities, and valid, reliable, and meaningful assessment. While these three topics may seem very different, they share one common goal: improving student learning.

Cooperative Games

We began the class by participating in some cooperative learning activities. There were three different types of activities: building stick figures using toothpicks, solving a number puzzle using a hundred chart, and building a structure using Cube-A-Links. At each of these stations, each group remember received one hint or clue that would help to solve the puzzle. Each person was responsible for reading their clue out loud as no one else was allowed to see or read it. As a team, we pieced our clues together in order to solve the puzzle at the station.

Olij, B. © 2016

I loved participating in these cooperative group activities! I particularly liked that each group member had their own clue which they were responsible for. I find that if group activities are not carefully planned, it is easy for one or two students to dominate the conversation while the more timid or less confident students stay silent and don't really participate. By giving everyone a clue and creating a requirement where each student is responsible for reading their clue, every student is contributing and every student's voice is being heard. Every member of the group feels needed and valued as the students work together as a team to solve the puzzle. Cooperative games are a great way to promote a positive and engaging learning environment! 

Student Activities Involving Technology

This week's Learning Activity Presentation's focused on how we can incorporate technology into our lesson plans in order to enhance student learning. I chose to use the Chocomatic Gizmo from Explore Learning to develop an activity where students created rectangles which shared a common area but had different lengths and widths. In order to put this problem-solving activity into context, I created a scenario where students were "Chief of Chocolate" at the Chocomatic Gizmo Company and thus they had the responsibility to develop a chocolate bar collection where each chocolate bar in the collection shared the same area but had different dimensions. In order to ensure the activity had a wide base and a high ceiling, I allowed students to choose the number of squares in their collection. Students who struggle with math could choose a friendly number that they were comfortable with while other students could challenge themselves by choosing a larger or more complex number.  

© Gizmos. Retrieved from www.explorelearning.com.

The Chocomatic Gizmo is a great resource for enhancing student learning as it encourages students to take risks, explore new ideas, and make connections. It allows students to represent new knowledge in a non-linguistic format, use manipulatives to explore new concepts and put them into practice, and generate and test hypotheses. This inquiry-based, student-centred approach is important for helping students to develop a deeper understanding of math. 

Assessment 

As teachers, we also need to ensure that our assessment serves to improve student learning. In Chapter 3 of Making Math Meaningful, Marian Small discusses the characteristics of good assessment. One of the characteristics that stood out to me was that our assessment should be "useful in assisting students to assess their own learning" (p. 38). It is important that our students have opportunities for self-assessment so that they can take initiative to reflect on their learning and develop strategies for how to improve in the future. When students have a clear understanding of the learning goals and success criteria and are active, engaged, and critical assessors, deep and meaningful learning happens!