Rationale

History

This project was conducted in the 2020-2021 school year. I taught third grade in a suburban elementary school in Nebraska. This school is a Title-1 school. In the 2018-2019 school year there were 413 students enrolled at our building. 100% of students received free and reduced lunch due to COVID-19. One student had an Individual Education Plan (IEP). This student received services for a Specific Learning Disability. There are two students on behavior plans in my classroom. The demographics of my class consisted of four students who are Caucasian, two students who are Hispanic, and one student who was two or more races.

Need

The data that I collected from my students showed a need for targeted instruction in math. More specifically, their ability to communicate their mathematical reasoning. The data collected to support the need in math is from Measure of Academic Progress (MAP), common formative assessments (CFAs), Quick Quizzes, and observations from math warm ups. These data points showed that students needed support in the area of number sense and mathematical reasoning.

2020-2021 Fall Math Map Performance

MAP

MAP places students into five different achievement categories: low, low-average, average, high average, and high. In the goal area of number, 29% of my students were in the low category, 7% were low-average, 21% were average, 7% were high-average, and 36% were high. Along with the goal area of number having the largest percentage of students in the low category, it also has the largest percentage of students in the high category.

Quick Quizzes

Quick quizzes are quizzes that the math curriculum provides as a way to quickly assess whether students are understanding a concept or need re-teaching. One aspect of the quizzes involves having students correct an error and explain why it is incorrect. On one particular Quick Quiz, four students received 90%, one student received 80%, five students received 60%, and two students received 40%. This Quick Quiz asked students to show multiple strategies to solve two and three digit multiplication. The quiz also asked students to justify their strategies through writing. Students continually struggle with this aspect. In particular, students struggle explaining why something is incorrect and following through with their explanation on how to correct the mistake.

Common Formative Assessments

Common Formative Assessments (CFAs) are given after each unit and test to see what information students still need to master before moving onto the next unit. According to these results, 60% of students struggled with questions regarding number sense with multiplication, and understanding that in the process of multiplication the product becomes bigger, whereas with division the quotient gets smaller. Students also struggled when they had to explain why their answer was correct.

Importance

The information gained from this study is important because it allowed me to examine the effectiveness of written responses in mathematics in the area of number sense, fact fluency, and computation. This information gave me guidance on how to plan lessons for whole group and small group instruction. It allowed me to see exactly where student thinking was and the strategies that students used to solve math problems. Since number sense is a crucial piece to mathematical understanding, this study was beneficial for students who are striving mathematicians and students who are thriving mathematicians. Thinking critically about how to solve math problems gave students an opportunity to think through each step as they solve a problem. This allowed students to find and correct errors in their logic. Looking beyond third grade, students should be proficient in number sense because it allows them to be flexible thinkers in math and other situations that involve numbers. Students should know each number has a value and how it relates and affects other numbers.

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