Phase 2 - The Big Idea
My name is Jeff Erickson and I teach 5th Grade Math at Nobel Elementary School in the inner city of Chicago in an area called West Humboldt Park. This neighborhood is a hotbed of gang activity and poverty. One hundred percent of our students are on the Universal Breakfast and Free Lunch programs. Our student body is approximately 70% Hispanic and 30% African American. Diverse learners (students with IEPs) make up about 10% of the class. The 5th grade has an enrollment of about 90 students divided into three classes. Based on last year, each class will be scheduled for 90 consecutive minutes of math instruction five days per week.
My goal for my students is to make them into mathematicians. I want them to be able to see, think, act and communicate like mathematicians in the classroom, in the real world and in everyday life. I want them to use mathematics to simplify, explain and solve problems in the real world. The key components of this goal are for each student to improve their number sense, perseverance in problem solving and engagement in productive collaboration with their peers and others in their respective academic, family and social communities. I not only want them to be able to solve problems in the real world using mathematics, but to identify and seek those problems that need solutions.
Our units of study start with a comprehensive understanding of place value from hundredths to a billion. Students will be challenged to use this understanding of place value to perform the four basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with multi-digit whole numbers and for the first time with decimals. Students are then introduced to the world of fractions. A majority of the year is spent in understanding the four basic operations in mathematics as applied to fractions. Focus on volume and area follows and the year ends with problem solving using the coordinate plane.
My expectations are that students can transfer this knowledge to real world problems and persevere in solving them from finding the area of a room to adding up the bill at a restaurant with tax and a tip. With an increased proficiency in number sense, they will be able to assess the reasonableness of their solutions. I also expect to see student improvement in fluency and automaticity in basic mathematical skills.
I believe this STEM fellowship program has made me totally re-think my pedagogical approach. To be fair, this is only my second year teaching 5th grade math. In the past years, I have used the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) Methodology and have been focused on the content that needed to be covered throughout the year. I taught the content using examples from the text and then had the students use this understanding to solve real world problems. My students performed well on the standardized tests, so I thought I was doing a great job. Unfortunately, I have been dismayed by the long term results. Students are still struggling with transferring this understanding into solving any type of real world mathematical problems and have very little number sense.
I still firmly believe in the GRR methodology, but I now contend that to teach mathematics you need to start with real world problems and help the students to uncover the content necessary for understanding how to solve that problem. I believe this will not only lend itself to a deeper understanding of the mathematics, but will resonate with the student long term. Technology, such as the SMARTboard, smart phones, desktop and laptop computers with publishing, presentation, video, audio and animation capabilities, will definitely enhance this process by providing many alternative and creative ways to accomplish these goals. It definitely will provide more visual and audio stimulation, creative thinking, and will make learning fun again.