Connecting Assessments

Describe your work with diverse stakeholders, shared learning experiences, and how you anticipate your instructional mindset might evolve during the TLI process.

Is there a need for a tutoring program for our math students above Geometry? That was my question that I took to all the stakeholders. My goal was to work with administration and NHS sponsor to get a list of students that would be willing to tutor. Start off small where maybe only 1 or 2 periods a day where tutors would be available. I know rooms would be a hard thing to find so I could give up my room during my prep for a period of tutoring help. Research the positive influence of peer tutoring and show these statistics to my department. Show the math department that with working on scheduling this could eliminate math labs from our FTE and in turn this would affect our offerings which would lower our class sizes . I have brought this up many times in our department meeting, but I keep getting shot down. I would like to develop a tutoring program where our NHS students can help students in all math classes throughout the day. They would get volunteer hours and other students would get help in their math class. After participating in the TLI experience I learned that I had to go about achieving my goal in a different matter. Currently we have a class period in place for a student in geometry or algebra for a lab. They must do math in that period and they get an elective credit for the class. They essentially have to take two math classes to get the help they need. When these labs were created it was because our math graduation requirements were going up from 2 to 3 so administration (see explanation on context) wanted a support in place for the students that struggled in math. But what we did not consider the kids that would like to take the next math class, but struggle in math. Some were choosing not take a math their senior year, or worse they may not pass their 3rd math class to graduate. Sometimes we worry more about the failing or super low students and not our regular students. I felt we dropped the ball for our regular students. Our high students have great choices and our low students have interventions in place but we have nothing for that regular student. Math is really hard for some kids that might just need a little help. I am very passionate about this and TLI has taught me I need to adjust my personal Effectiveness and Communication. I needed to ask my math department their opinions first and see if they believed there was a need for tutoring. I sent my department a google form survey asking if they believed there was a need for upper level math tutoring beyond Geometry. I spoke with each of the counselors and the administration about the need. I needed to go about this program from what students needed instead of talking about the negative. I previously would use the “I told you so” avenue. I told everyone 4 years ago this would happen we would need help for Algebra 2 students. From our previous years’ discussion (see explanation above about the district meetings for interventions for our lower students and doing nothing for the regular student) I was very passionate about not forgetting the regular student that struggled. Because I took the “ I told you so” attitude I would turn my department off before I could even state my idea. Unpacking the competencies at TLI Face to face meeting showed me I needed to adjust my delivery.

Describe how your awareness of those from different cultures, experiences, and backgrounds inform your chosen project.

Allow all students a chance to get math help. Allow all students to take the math class that they desire. Not only offer help for Algebra 1 and Geometry it could be help for Algebra 2, College Algebra, Pre-Calc, Calc, or Stats. I don’t think it is right for math teachers to think that just because kids are not naturally good at math they should not be able to take that challenging upper level class. If a student comes from a poverty family getting a 22 on the ACT might change their life. It changed my life. As a young elementary student I never believed I could go to college because no one in my family had ever gone. I had a teacher believe in me and show me no matter what socioeconomic class I belonged to being good at math and being a good student would open doors for me I always thought were locked. See artifact about what math classes should take in high school ) According to this website https://blog.prepscholar.com/the-high-school-math-classes-you-should-take

Colleges require 3 years of math and most want students to take 4 years of math. We as a district were doing a disservice to our poverty, lower income, or identified students by dumb-ing down algebra 1 to 2 years, which would only allow them to take geometry if they took a math class their senior year. And then for the regular student Algebra 2 was such a big jump mathematically from Geometry many students were defeated and wouldn’t take a math class their senior year. (See failure rates for Algebra 2 Artifact from Context page )

I have worked really hard to increase seniors taking math. That is why 6 years ago I introduced College Algebra/Statistics and agreed to teach the class. The first two years we had 30 students registered and now this year there were 89 signed up. We went from 1 section of College Algebra/ Statistics to 4 sections needed in 4 years time. There needed to be something for seniors besides pre-calc and calculus. Now that we have something for seniors to take we need to help students in algebra 2 so they keep going in their math career. Peer tutoring could be this solution for every student no matter their backgrounds.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jx4NfOaWfqQQ0Zh_d-Ct91dwyWjsJoYT/view?usp=sharing