One in ten students in MA is classified as an English Language Learner (ELL). And most of these students struggle to perform at the same level as other students on measures of academic success such as standardized tests and high-school completion rates. In theory, translation technology could help ELLs learn in Sheltered English Instruction (SEI) classrooms by helping them access knowledge that they have in other languages. The following presentation summarizes my efforts to “translate” theory to practice in an SEI classroom during my full practicum. Drop a line if you have comments or questions!
Two weeks ago, I tried to use scratch (programming) to improve on the color-coded behavior management system in my pre-practicum class. The system currently in place is simple and easy to use; students start out as green (good), and can move to excellent (blue) or to yellow (warning – ineligible for leader responsibilities), orange (loss of recess), and red (parent conference):
However, I wanted to improve on this system by tracking behavior along specific dimensions, and using successful behavior along these specific dimensions (e.g. self-control or cooperation) to create a general color-coded behavioral assessment. To make desired behaviors more concrete and “game-like”, I also wanted to have specific challenges for students to “win”.
The result is an app with an opening screen that looks quite similar to the “analog” version:
But, after clicking on a “card” it becomes clear that:
each color is related to attaining a certain number of “stars”: 5 or 6 = blue, 4 = green, 3 = yellow, 2 = orange, 1 = red, and 0 = gray;
each star corresponds to a specific category of behavior (the categories below can easily be adjusted); and
to get a star, students must complete a challenge.
When students successfully complete a challenge, balloons start streaming to reward them, and (after hitting the “r” key twice) their color coding changes as well.
Check out the live application at the bottom of this post, or click here (for the app on the scratch website), and please leave any comments (especially ideas to improve the app)!
Development notes:
Data management – specifically keeping track of stars as the stars are checked and unchecked – was the most complicated part of programming this application. The program appears to have stretched scratch’s data management capabilities because the program does not come with a file management system as far as I can tell. To get around this limitation, I set up keys that pre-populate the stars to 0 or five, and provide access to lists (arrays) that can be exported to/imported from excel (see the teacher page in the app).
Student names, behavioral categories, and challenges are set up to be easy to customize.
The next version of this tool will include more sound effects (beyond the balloons popping)
Scratch is a really cool tool for educators! building this app made me realize how useful it can be for building animated stories, word sorts, and quizzes.
Many of us probably memorized the slope intercept formula (y=mx+b) in middle school without fully understanding how the formula represents linear growth. I was not able to visualize how the formula translated into lines until 11th or 12th grade.
It turns out that, in Japan, some teachers give students an open ended (but supported) problem called the “growing dot” problem to try and build conceptual knowledge that relates to the slope intercept formula. Check out the slideshow below (adapted from a presentation for a Math and Technology class at Boston College) to see how one teacher applied this method to his middle-school students.
Source: Goldsmith, L. T., and Seago, N. M. (2013). Examining mathematics practice through classroom artifacts. 88-96, Boston. MA: Pearson
In Mathematics instruction, the mental processes that are taking place in students’ minds are often as (or more) important than the output that they produce. But, instructions to “show your work” aside, it can often be difficult to evaluate whether a student has fully grasped a concept like a slope-intercept formula, long division, or place value. One way to gain a better understanding of the mental models that students approach problems with is to record or observe students as they attempt to solve (relatively) open ended problems. According to Goldsmith and Seago (2013), this system for gaining insight involves three steps:
Select representations for particular purposes – find out which representations will support your students’ access to the content
Recognize the math involved in a particular representation – for example, students need to know that there are 100 cents in a dollar in order understand how to use 100s blocks to solve coin problems
Link representations to underlying ideas and other representations – for example, students learn to skip count because they have been asked to memorize the multiples of certain numbers. So, often, students don’t know that skip counting is a form of multiplication
The analysis below examines this video using the three steps listed above. (Note: this exercise was carried out for EDUC7520.01 – Math and Technology in Teaching – at Boston College)
