Grade Grades : The Most Important Predictors Of Future Math

In order to improve my instructional practices, I analyzed instructional data from district math diagnostic and proficiency assessments. The most recent assessment assessed student’s abilities to count, add and subtract, and their understanding of place value. My students scored below not only the other first grade students at the school, but also all first grade students in the district. 81.6% of my students could count, read, and write numbers to 120. This was an improvement from their diagnostic assessment. However, only 66.7% could relate counting to addition and subtraction, and only 45% demonstrated understanding of place value in two digit numbers.

The idea of time, whether it be for over a period, such as 60 hours, or during a season, summer or fall, does not appear to be particularly significant when trying to address the discursive patterns of practicing teachers. Whether this is relevant to teachers using what is an accepted way to describe students’ mathematical performance, or just being unaware of their talk, spending more time in professional development did not seem to be an answer.

Disturbingly, “nearly one-fifth of high school students and over 50 percent of middle school students are enrolled in math classes whose teachers neither majored or minored in math” (Drew, 2011, p.9). In 2000, 31 percent of high

Dacey, L., & Gartland, K. (2009). Math for All: Differentiating instruction, grades 6-8. (J. Cross, Ed.) Sausalito, California, USA: Math Solutions.

After the school approved this research, all three teachers of 433 math were contacted for the possibility of the study being conducted in their classrooms. All three happily agreed to take part in this study. Approximately, three days before data collection, the teachers passed out an Opt-Out form (see Appendix I) to the students. This form allowed the students and their parents to choose not to participate in the study. All students who do not return the form participated in the Do-Now. The teacher received a manila folder with two different variations of the Do-Now, fluent and disfluent (see Appendix II and III). The folder contained the exact number of papers as students in the class. Within the folder, there was an equal number of fluent

Longitudinal data collections serves three purposes to (1) monitor educational reform policies, (2) capture data on students from kindergarten through college, and (3) monitor teacher’s performance (State Longitudinal Data System, n.d. para. 3). If teachers base their instructional decision making on longitudinal data, then they should be literate in statistical data analysis because “growth models can be complex and difficult for non-statistician to understand” (“Teachers Ability….” 2011 pg. 24; “Measuring Student Growth:” n.d. pg. 8). For instance, some of the literacy skills needed to be effective include properly reading histograms, analyzing score distribution, the effect of outliers, limits on generalizability, understand measurement

His report solely looked at math achievement. His reasoning was that high school math is one of the strongest predictors of college success and because testing data is widely available and objective. Lee looked at three different sets of national data across education, to examine college readiness benchmarks again two-year and four-year colleges admission and graduation. This is a summary of each of those data sets:

However, before we look at what teacher expectancy effect really is, it is crucial for us to

The National curriculum states that in Mathematics teachers should use every relevant subject to develop pupils’ mathematical fluency. Confidence in numeracy and other mathematical skills is

Next, I observed for thirty-two hours solely in a fourth grade classroom. The mathematics time I observed in this class was spent working on problems out of a mathematics textbook. The students moved problem-by-problem and page-by-page through this textbook. Since this technique requires little to no critical thinking, it is not likely that they will recall how to solve the problems. Lastly, I spent thirty-two hours observing two sixth grade mathematics classes. The first class was students, who were performing at grade-level, and the other class was students who were performing below grade level, however both classes used the same teaching techniques. The teacher lectured, the students took notes, and then the students completed an electronic worksheet. The students then had to write their answers down on a physical piece of paper to turn in for their grade. The students were wasting time by having to copy down answers instead of learning more about mathematics. Students are not retaining what they have been taught because of the low level of critical thinking currently being used in schools.

In schools with higher percentages of effective teachers, the impact of PLCs on student achievement will be greater.

The quantitative method for this study is being used because of the statistical, arithmetical, or a numerical study of facts gathered through surveys, and questionnaires (Babbie, 2010). The quantitative will allow to measure before and after. This quantitative research is significant because it will statistically show the number of teachers that improve with a before and after test design. The methodology will be a Quantitative Quasi-Experimental Pre-Post Test Design.

Of course you could always work hard to learn the content, but it would be very useful to know more about high level mathematics. It could be very good for students to have a teacher that has a math major or minor along with their teaching degree. In the fifth grade classroom, the teacher is not the greatest mathematician, but is very honest with the students and shows her curiosity to find the answer.

A Year in the Life of an Elementary School: One School's Experiences in Meeting New Mathematics Standards

Many educators will argue what makes an effective teacher and how that correlates with the function of the classroom. When we talked about how to be an effective teacher we discussed three components, teaching through problem-solving and selecting appropriate tasks, creating appropriate environments and using appropriate interventions. In my field experience, I was able to observe these three effective mathematics teaching components and understand how they apply to the classroom. After leaning about these components, I was then able to use them in my personal experience and see how they