Points Worth: 15 possible in total
(NOTE: You will receive full credit for this assignment if you share in class the information you learned about your students’ identities as well as their personal, cultural, and community assets for each activity listed below AND meet with Torrey to discuss what you learned about your students’ identities and community assets after doing these activities (considering your own personal identity and mathography) as well as what you learned about yourself in the process.
Due Dates:
October 12 (in class): Classroom Survey
October 26 (in class): Community Walk
November 9 (in class): Student Interview
November 3-15: Meet 1-1 with Torrey for 30 minutes to discuss your work on this project
Project Overview:
Two of our main foci this year are (1) recognizing and validating student identities, and (2) identifying and leveraging the multiple “smarts” and assets (personal, cultural, and community) that each student brings to and demonstrates in your class. For this assignment, you will learn about your students’ identities as well as their personal, cultural, and community assets. First, you will distribute and analyze a classroom survey. Second, you will do a community walk. Third, you will interview a student. Here are more details about each of these activities.
Classroom Survey (due October 12): For this activity, create a survey to gather information about all of the students in at least one class period. You may also want to look at these questions about student assets created by the TEACH Math Project and the Math Identity Survey. Your survey should include questions about how your students perceive mathematics as “sensible, useful, and worthwhile”, persist in applying mathematics to solve problems, and believe in their own ability to learn mathematics.
Community Walk (due October 26): For this activity, you will do a physical “community walk” through places/spaces near your school (not in your school building but outside your school building). As you “travel”, record your observations and collect artifacts about such things as the geographic setting (e.g., building design and costs, quality of homes, natural features), types and quantities of businesses (e.g., restaurants, grocery, goods, services, local stores, chain stores), community spaces and resources (e.g., community centers, parks, churches, food banks, public transportation), and other features that you think are notable given your subject-area. Also think about the mathematical features of the places you visit and what you observe in/at these locations. Here is a more detailed description of this activity created by the TEACH Math Project.
Student Interview (due November 9): For this activity (based on the TEACH Math “Case Study” Module), you will select one student from your practicum classroom who is different from you in one or more socio-cultural ways (i.e., race, socio-economic status, home language; do not select ONLY on the basis of difference in gender) AND who seems to you to struggle at least somewhat with mathematics. The interview should last approximately 20-30 minutes. The purpose of the interview is to: (1) find out more about the student including student interests, activities the student engages in outside of school, and what the student identifies as activities for which the student excels, (2) identify places, locations, and activities in the community that are familiar to children, and to find out what the student knows about potential mathematical activity in those settings, and (3) find out more about the students’ ideas, attitudes and/or dispositions towards mathematics and their experiences in your math class.
Meeting with Torrey (November 3-15): During your 1-1 meeting with Torrey you will share what you learned about your students’ identities and community assets after doing these activities (considering your own personal identity and mathography) as well as what you learned about yourself in the process.