Shaffiq+Welji

toc

About Me
Shaffiq teaches high-school mathematics and coaches the robotics team. He previously taught internationally and at college-level and has worked on youth and adult education programs.

AR Overview
The action research project focused on how high-school students learn basic mathematical skills and considered how issues such as practice, motivation, and the students’ beliefs about the mathematics impact how they implement these skills in a more advanced context. The project evolved through different phases and formative assessment strategies.

Question
How can students be motivated to master prerequisite and fundamental algebraic skills through practice?

Summary of Some Relevant Research on Motivation (see Tough and Pink):

 * Motivation highest when:
 * Students Competent
 * Sufficient Autonomy
 * Set Worthwhile Goals
 * Get Feedback
 * Get Affirmed by Others
 * Factors impacting motivation:
 * Clear purposes and goals
 * Intrinsic motivational properties of task
 * Relationship between student and teacher
 * Interest develops with practice (IKEA Effect)
 * Motivation and Volition paired together
 * Increasing Intrinsic Motivation: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
 * Extrinsic Motivation for tasks with LOW Creativity and Intrinsic Motivation
 * Rationale for why necessary, Empathy for having to do the task, and Autonomy for how completed

Results and Next Steps

 * On average, 2 percent increase on the focused algebraic skills per assessment (for 10 assessments). Basic skills are very resistant to change. (See National Mathematics Advisory Panel for discussion and ideas.)
 * Factors impacting students’ abilities to solve mathematics problems (see Schoenfeld):
 * Knowledge: What students know/think they know
 * Heuristics: Strategies students use to extend what they know to new situations
 * Control: Metacognitive techniques (approach to solving problems)
 * Belief Systems: What students believe about the mathematics
 * Surveys and Observation indicate the following issues around Belief Systems and Control:
 * Believe they are “Careless errors” or “Unknown reasons”.
 * Believe they don’t remember (even when readily recall).
 * Believe they can’t work the problem.
 * Control: when the students give up, combine numbers.
 * Second phase of project: Mindset, Self-Assessment, and Self-Analysis.