Indicators

• 4.3.a Establish trusting and respectful coaching relationships that encourage educators to explore new instructional strategies.

• 4.3.b Partner with educators to identify digital learning content that is culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate and aligned to content standards.

• 4.3.c Partner with educators to evaluate the efficacy of digital learning content and tools to inform procurement decisions and adoption.

• 4.3.d Personalize support for educators by planning and modeling the effective use of technology to improve student learning.

Description

In this Canva slideshow and action research report, a fellow educator and I partnered together (4.3.a) to investigate the difference in impact between physical and virtual manipulatives (4.3.c) in math for first graders. The slide presentation summarizes the information from the action research study report. The two artifacts contain a literature review, a description of the setting and diverse group of participants (4.3.b), the methodology, results and findings, and discussion and conclusions. 

Implementation

I shared the action research study presentation with my CSUF Ed Tech Master’s cohort. I also presented the information to my academic coach at Arroyo Elementary School, the Pomona math teachers on special assignment (TOSA), the Pomona Educational Technology Department, and the academic coach at Centralia Elementary School District. I partnered with each of these individuals on different occasions to share the methodology and results of the action research study and to model the instructional strategies documented in the action research study. I invited the Centralia TOSA into my classroom during math instruction (4.3.d) so the 6th-grade students could model the techniques they learned from me. When the TOSA visited, the students used virtual and physical manipulatives to solve percent and proportion problems. The TOSA was very impressed with students' multiple options to express their learning. She took a picture of their work and said she would share it with other educators in the district.

Impact

The findings of the action research have impacted practice at Arroyo Elementary. Before the implementation, teachers would model with physical manipulatives and have the students watch. Teachers would only use physical manipulatives some of the time when modeling concepts. As a result, students rarely used physical manipulatives when solving math problems. In addition, teachers would never use virtual manipulatives when modeling math concepts, so students would never access virtual manipulatives during concept development or independent practice. Now, teachers give students access to physical and virtual manipulatives and collaborate together with their students to model concepts together to maximize the time with manipulatives. Students can choose virtual or physical manipulatives during independent work and assessment to assist in modeling and solving problems. The new practice has increased student engagement, independence, and achievement.

In contrast, the impact at Centralia has yet to be seen. I met with the TOSA for a follow-up meeting two weeks after her visit. She said she shared the techniques and tools from my action research project with other teachers she is mentoring this year. She said that my knowledge of math and ed-tech will be valuable when we begin new math textbook adoption in two years.