Education Commons^™

Discussion In Middle And High School Earth Science Classrooms And Its Impact On Students' Abilities To Construct Evidence-Based Arguments In Their Written Work, Rachel Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Middle and high school teachers who participate in the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership (MainePSP) noted persistent problems in their classrooms, including low levels of student engagement and gaps in how students use evidence. To address these problems, this study was designed in collaboration with MainePSP teachers in a design-based implementation research process as teachers aimed to better connect classroom discussion and written argumentation. Though scientific writing makes use of argumentation to support ideas, it is often the sharing of ideas that makes an argument stronger.

Two teachers collected data from their seventh and ninth grade Earth Science classrooms at schools …

Effects Of Discussion And Writing On Student Understanding Of Mathematics Concepts, Joseph Roicki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For this action research project, I wanted to examine my practice of teaching mathematics. Specifically, I encouraged students to improve their communication skills during my math class through daily discussion and writing tasks. After establishing a class set of sociomathematical norms, the students solved problems provided by the Every Day Counts: Calendar Math program and used verbal and written formats to describe their problem solving methods and reasons. My study showed the effects of using discussion and writing to help students develop their conceptual understanding of mathematical ideas. Focus was placed on the quality of daily discussions and written tasks …

The Effects Of Journal Writing On Student Attitudes And Performance In Problem Solving, Christine Quinones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study summarizes research conducted in a second grade classroom at a rural elementary school in the fall of 2004. This study investigated the practice of using writing activities in mathematics to improve student attitudes and performance in problem solving. The classroom teacher supplemented traditional mathematics instruction with daily problem solving activities and affective journal writing. Students were asked to complete daily problem solving prompts and write about their problem-solving solutions. Attitude data was collected using a pre and post attitude survey as well as affective journal writing assignments. Performance data was collected using a performance based problem-solving rubric. Results …