TetzMathPortfolio
“Games have grown up, and playing them is no longer reserved for children. In fact, the ability to play may be the single most important skill to develop for the 21st century.” (Thomas & Brown, 2011)
Wii Olympic Math
In this challenge I created a lesson plan that uses technology to teach something with which students have misconceptions. I chose something that students have trouble learning due to their lack of interest. My plan is actually for a full unit as that is how I plan. I start an activity with my students and then interject the teachable moments as they come to allow them to link to the experience. I try to be as responsive in my teaching as I can so planning a single lesson is no longer how I view teaching. My project comes in two parts, my unit plan and then the section answering some additional questions to think about.
Other Questions to think about
Content:
This unit is not as much about challenging misconceptions, even though there are a few that occur, as it is about getting students to want to learn the information. In the past, this has been the most difficult concepts to teach, as students see no use for them. I am hoping that if students are engaged, they will have more desire to learn the information thus retain more of it.
Pedagogy:
The students will be working in groups of four during this unit. These groups are chosen by me by looking at learning needs previously presented so that each groups experience can be tailored to them. As the students are working in groups, their knowledge will be socially constructed. The calculations are required to move on to the next event so this creates the behaviourist idea of intermittent reward. I am also applying Dweck’s idea of motivation being important to learning and am also applying Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding to allow all students to participate.
Content & Pedagogy: I would love to be able to have each group work on their data independently or in smaller groups than the whole class but I only have one Smartboard in my room and only one version of the game. Thus, the knowledge has to be socially constructed. I decided on not allowing students to move on before playing due to the large number of my students who will do nothing unless getting something done is in their best interest. When those students are actively involved in their learning, or motivated to learn, they retain more of the skills that they are presented. I hope that with the Wii game their engagement and thus their retention will be increased.
Technology:
I will be using the Wii Console with four remotes. I will be using the Game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Vancouver edition. I have chose to use this technology to help increase engagement with the topics. It is possible to teach these units with the Wii as I have done in the past, but I have struggled with having students want to learn the skill and have retention beyond the test. I am hoping that using the game to generate data will help to increase engagement. As well, many of my students are new to Canada and are new to winter sports in general as they are coming from places where the weather is usually warm. Using the Winter Olympic Games allows students some understanding of what the different winter sports are like and can learn some of the vocabulary and understanding of how the sport works. The Technology is a springboard or “twist” that allows students to view the math in a different light. To link the experience of many outside of class to their work at school and more importantly allow those students with no experience the chance to be able to converse with their peers with understanding of how to play a game on a Wii.
Technology & Pedagogy:
The Winter Olympic Game provides just-in-time tutorials to help students learn how to play the event. The game also provides a target line to help students to stay on track. The remotes contain a function that causes the remote to vibrate if the player has gone out of bounds to remind plays to correct their path. The route and out of bounds are clearly marked and a mini map is provided so that students can prepare themselves for what is to come. The game provides images on the ground to remind students of what to do, for example lines that indicate a jump is to happen.
Technology & Content:
The technology I have chosen provides the context for why the skills in question could be useful in the real world. It is also more engaging than pages in a textbook or other artificially generated numbers. I believe students will take more ownership for the learning due to the fact that they had a part in generating the data. In the past, the skills have been very difficult to teach due to student resistance. I am hoping by adding the novelty of playing Wii in class, linking to prior knowledge, and providing context for when these skills will be useful that students will be more receptive to practice these skills.
Assessment:
I have not figured out a way to use the Wii during the summative assessment, only the formative ones. Assessment is discussed in the formal unit plan.
Wii Olympic Math- Reflection
The students pulled together to cheer on their classmates. It was refreshing to see how they cheered on every student even the one coming in fourth. My room has 8 tables so we designated 4 tables as front tables and 4 as back tables. The students kept track themselves of which tables needed to be up and who had not had a chance to go, without any arguing or students trying to take extra turns. Many students wanted extra turns but no one took one, which really impressed me. It was also great to see some students who do not excel academically shine in their use of the Wii and this pride translated into them being more willing to try during the math components. I had students who do not have regular attendance show up every day during the Wii Olympic math and students who are usually late for class sprinting to ensure they were ready to go. It was also exciting to see those students who had no experience with the Wii become more proficient and begin to take part in discussions about the Wii. The team building and excitement that this unit inspired made me decide to start out my new classes in the fall with this unit to try to help foster class cohesion.
I learned something very important about the integrating of technology into a classroom as well as I started this project. I learned that one should never only include the technology in the first day of the unit, the content needs to be there as well. The first day I worked on activating prior knowledge and demonstrated how to use the Wii. We then started gathering our first set of data by playing the team bobsled. It took the whole class to gather the data with 32 students so I told them that we would use our data the following day. Needless to say, my students went home and told their parents we did nothing but play the Wii all class, true but out of context, so I had some angry parent phone calls that I needed to return. The parents were all fine after I explained the purpose of the Wii but the initial contact was not very happy due to their students playing video games in class.
The unit itself went very well. There were a few occasions when a mode was presented in the data and only one occasion of an outlier when I elected to not have a student fill an extra seat in a run to allow the time to be much slower than all the rest. I was a bit concerned that once we left the team events we would have 30 or 32 pieces of data to work with, but with scaffolding all students were able to work with the measures of central tendency. All four classes decided they would rather work harder with many pieces of data if that meant everyone had an opportunity to try all events, than work with fewer data points because fewer students got to try.
One of the most wonderful unexpected things that happened in this unit was that the unit ran itself. The students took charge of making sure the game was ready, making sure everyone had turns, making sure that all parts of central tendency were calculated that it freed me up to work with those students who needed extra support. I was able to just check in with those students who needed reassurance but was also able to sit and work in a small group with those students who were struggling to ensure they understood what they need to do. By the end of the unit, all students were able to demonstrate at least a basic understanding of decimal operations and central tendency.
Some issues that came up due to the nature of the data revolved around the concept of mode. There were very few times where mode occurred and it only every had the number show up twice. This created the misconception for some students that mode meant a number that happened two times, even though they could tell you it was a number that happened the most. As a result, these students would write down the number that happened twice as the mode for a set of data totally ignoring numbers that happened more frequently. I know it isn’t possible to force the game to create modes with higher frequency so I will have to address that concept through my entrance or exit tickets in the fall.
Overall, I believe that this unit plan did the two major things I wanted it to do. The first thing it did was to combine units together to allow more time for students to consolidate their knowledge about the concepts in questions. Many students need more practice in order to be able to consolidate their learning and combining units together made it possible to provide those students with the time they needed. The second thing it did was to excite students about learning math, students were engaged, on task, and accomplishing what I needed them to do with little fuss or complaints. Using the Wii allowed me to provide my students with a context for why these skills could be important outside the mathematics classroom. One thing I did not expect was the sense of class that this activity produced. The students all worked together to accomplish something and encouraged each other resulting in the ability of the class to do more. As a teacher the idea that your class can become more than the sum of its parts is an awesome one. To experience it was really awe-inspiring. It has made me excited to start school again in the fall even as this school year draws to the close. I can’t wait for the improved version of this activity.
Innovative 2
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Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is a product of Nintendo. Click the image above to go to their webpage for more information