1. The technology that I have chosen to use is a SMART Board along with interactive websites to help my students practice their multiplication facts in class and get motivated to practice more outside of school. Since I have been teaching there has always been a struggle to get my students to learn their multiplication facts. I have used every game, trick and strategy that I could possibly find but nothing really seems to help the students that are slightly unmotivated or those who do not have a lot of support at home. In the research that I have done there isn’t really a quick or easy way to learn multiplication facts except for drill and practice. When given all of the strategies and tricks for understanding them the only thing left to do it memorize. Since I fully believe that kids learn in different ways this will allow for students to practice their facts in a more hands on way. The interactive games will allow them to be involved and require movement, which a lot of students need. It helps to keep the students more interested and motivated.
2. The technology that I am using will make the content more accessible to the students by driving their motivation to practice more on their own outside of school. What I have found in using the SMART Board to reinforce learning is that students like to be successful when they are playing another student. It is also motivating for the other students to watch because they then want to be the one who is up there getting to play the game. This will also allow for the student to get addition practice that they normally would not have had the opportunity to be a part of. I will also make a list of the websites to send home with the students so they they can have some different ways of practicing at home as well. Since I gave my students the technology survey I now know that they all have computers with internet access. This will help to let they parents know how successful their children are. My hope is that after completing this project I will be able to help other teachers who are also having this problem with their students.
3. I have designed this project so that students will have the opportunity to practice their multiplication facts in a different more exciting way. Since this is a skill that all student need to be able to do fluently, to help them in further math classes and as a skill that is used in everyday life, ,my overall goal for my students is that they will be able to increase their mad minute score by at least 5 problems in a minute and be more confident as mathematicians. I believe that this will help them to become more motivated learners and want to practice their multiplication math facts more!
I would definitely do this project again. I am sure that I could find newer, better interactive sites for the kids to practice and use. I would also like to start this project at the very beginning of my multiplication unit and not part way through. I think that I would see different result. Next time I would also think about having some volunteers come in to help monitor the SMART Board. Then I would really know that my students are using the SMART Board in the correct way.
Trying to find research that supports my solution was not an easy task. I found a lot of information that told how other teachers teach multiplication facts and what the others thought the best approach was but I was very limited in terms of finding research that showed playing math games would help kids to learn their multiplication math facts. In one study that I found from the University of Sydney titled Improving Basic Multiplication Fact Recall for Primary School Students it compared using paper and pencil with computer practice to drill the students. The results from the study showed that the students made about the same improvement using pencil and paper practice as compared to computer practice. They did suggest that computer –based practice can be better because some of the programs provide instant feedback for the students (Evans, 2007) .
Another document that I found was Fact Mastery and More!, this document said that not only do you need drill and practice but you also need to incorporate four main teaching principles when teaching multiplication facts. First you need to teach the strategies. Then, use visual representation. Next, present the facts in a thoughtful order. Finally, generalize the facts. This supports my thoughts and practices in that I feel I am doing the right type of teaching. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give any information to back up my thinking that playing multiplication math games will help students to more fluently learn their facts. (Woodward)
Evans, M. W. (2007). Improving Basic Multiplication Fact Recall for Primary School Students. Mathematics Education Research Journal , 89-106.
Woodward. (n.d.). University of Puget Sound. Retrieved April 2011, from www.ups.edu/faculty/woodward/facts%20overview.pdf
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