Final Presentation Slides

The link to the Canva Slides can be accessed here

Exit Slip (November 20) - Inquiry Project Progress

Over the next week, I plan to talk to some math teachers at my practicum school to collect (anonymous) data on their perceptions on the use of teacher resources for their classrooms. Some articles I researched explains specific reasons why teachers use resources and why the (personal) design of resources matter, hence these could form the basis of the types of questions I could ask. 

For my class activity, I plan to bring in various modes of resources - digital/online resources, textbooks, pre-made activities, worksheets - and the class will take some time to modify one of the activities. With the same of time, I may only stick to one digital activity worksheet that the class can complete in groups so they have more ideas to brainstorm. I will have two or three prompts that specify what type of class you are trying to modify your resources for (but these are still some of the options I can go with). I will continue to research and work on the presentation, so I have a solid goal I want to achieve with this topic. I'm hoping that this should help with my activity design as well.

Annotated Bibliography

1. Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Use of Web Resources

https://doi.org/10.1564/tme_v25.3.02 

This article gives insights on the benefits of implementing quality resources into the math curriculum taught by student-teachers. It focuses on lesson planning and various modes of work that teachers do in the classroom, such as using specific websites and online resources.

2. Didactical Materials Customizable to Suit Classroom Needs: A Valuable Resource for Teachers

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14050449 

This article points out the complexity of integration of appropriate materials that can be used as teaching resources. It reinforces my stance on this inquiry topic, since they mention how customization and modification can happen depending on class context, student skills, needs, and interests.

3. Using Textbooks and Teachers' Guides: A Dilemma for Beginning Teachers and Teacher Educators

https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.1988.11076050 

This article indicates how there are dilemmas to using textbooks as a starting point for beginner teachers to build their curriculum for teaching. This idea can support my argument on the need to use resources in certain situations, as well as some stigma that can be present in teacher resource use. 

4. Textbook Use and Teacher Professionalism

https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819009100514 

This article covers the relationship between the quality of resources to the quality of schooling, because teachers may heavily rely on resources. It is an old article, hence it gives me ideas on how things may have changed (and stayed the same) within the last 30~40 years of education (such as the quality of textbooks).

5. Approaching Curriculum Resources

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:739821/FULLTEXT02.pdf 

This article studies the behaviour of teachers wanting to use teaching guides and resources that connect theory and practice in math. However, it specifically explains the lack of study in the participatory relationship between teachers and (teaching) tools (i.e., how teachers interact with math resources), which is the topic I am interested in. 

6. AI in Lesson Planning: Improving Teacher Efficiency and Instructional Design

https://doi.org/10.55606/jurripen.v4i2.5560 

This article talks about the complexity of the job as teachers, introducing AI tools as a way to help with the creativity and development of personalized learning resources to enhance student learning. It covers the topic of burden and increased pressure of teachers to need to deliver quality, personalized, curriculum-aligned instructions while working under time constraints, which I view as one of the reasons why teachers benefit from using resources. 

7. Documentation Work, Design Capacity, and Teachers’ Expertise in Designing Instruction

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20393-1_11 

This article highlights how teacher resources should be used, what their decisions should depend on, and connects to the Documentational Approach to Didactics (DAD). These topics will guide me through specific questions to ask current teachers, and their perception of these analyses on how they consider teaching resources in mathematics. 

8. Teaching by design: Understanding the intersection between teacher practice and the design of curricular innovations

https://www.proquest.com/openview/6c10d62eefbd79d0239c6ac8579cc1c7/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y 

This published essay studies the pedagogical design capacity of teachers in various contexts, which, beyond the research, points out the strategies of crafting designs that can support the process of curriculum material implementations. They also highlight the relation between design capacities of materials and the knowledge and skills of the teacher, which could be present in the interviews I will have with current math teachers.

Exit Slip (November 13th)

 Today's Focus: Research for relevant articles on my Inquiry Project topic

While researching for literary articles, I came across a term called Documentational Approach to Didactics (DAD) which is a theory in math education which studies how math teachers professionally develop through interactions with resources they use for teaching (i.e., teaching materials). I will continue to look into this new theory since this encompasses the idea of teacher's work as a documentational work where people adapt and integrate 'documents' such as textbooks, online resources, etc., which is closely related to my interest. 

Exit Slip (November 6)

I have slightly shifted my topic from solely AI tools/resources to all educational resources (websites, videos, textbooks, pre-made lesson plans of your own in the past and from other teachers).

I've started off my Literary Search with key words such as "math education teaching resource usage", which gave me many articles that I actually thought were relevant to my topic and interest. I made sure to take some notes about the articles I looked through so I know what it is about when I go back to the list. Through the search on Google Scholar, I noticed that many recent articles focus on digital and computer-based resources reflecting the technological advancements in many schools. From now until the Annotated Bibliography due date, I would love to look more into articles on paper resources like textbook-use in developing homework problems and lesson notes!

In-class Inquiry Topic Write-up

Topic: 

Teacher professionalism and the degree of customization on the use of resources in a Math Classroom

Current Ideas:

• Collect data/opinions from teachers, parents, students, student-teachers on their views of how customized a teaching resource should be (in certain situations)
• 'Certain Situations' => is it a short 5 minute class activity idea? or are you designing a unit test? making homework questions?

• 
  

Extra Ideas:

(If i can talk to other subject teachers:) How would this "limit/degree" differ in subjects? => Math compared to English, Science, Language Courses, etc.

Exit Slip (October 2nd)

When I think of geometric shapes and functions, I probably visualize them in their simplest math form. If said a "circle", then I would picture it as the simple 2D circle, rather than picturing the form of a clock or a hula hoop. However, this class was interesting since we all had a chance to brainstorm where we see these shapes, as well as how the concept of shapes arise in the world as a verb rather than a noun.

Action words like circling words with a pen are commonly heard, but there are other things like ellipsing, which could be a way we can say to omit words/phrases, or hyperboling, which could explain the unique movement of cars merging to a lane and back out, or a crowd of people exiting though one door and spreading out after (This last idea is from Danielle's group). My group brainstormed a variety of examples where we see these shapes, like an ice cream cone, hourglass, race track, etc, and had lots of fun discussing while drawing them out on the white board! Drawing is always fun!