Middle School Math - Curriculum Evaluation
Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Final Project
Strengths
The final project did a fantastic job differentiating instruction for all learners. The project provided students with a strong understanding of the material an opportunity to challenge themselves by finding the area of a five to ten sided polygon, something never reviewed in class. Students took this challenge on with confidence and did a great job working through ways to find the area. Students who were struggling in the course were given easier shapes to work with, (triangles and squares or rectangles), which allowed them an opportunity to further their understanding of these concepts without becoming overwhelmed with new concepts and ideas. The students put a lot of time and thought into these projects and it was really nice to see the final products.
The exploration activities working with the area of shapes, in particular parallelograms and trapezoids, differentiated instruction well because the students were the ones discovering the equations. Since some of the students were able to do this on their own, limited instruction was given at the start of the class period and students were told to make a parallelogram/trapezoid and then determine a way to find the area of it. Watching students work through this was really enjoyable for some of them saw that they could manipulate it into parts they did know how to find the area, (a rectangle), while others struggled to even begin a motion towards productivity. I was able to circulate the room during this exploration period and assist those who needed extra guidance by providing helpful hints to them, giving small suggestions to those who were close, and encouraging those who were figuring it out on their own. The really cool part about the activity was having those who did figure it out teach those who were having difficulties. This assistance helped both students who were now learning in two different ways: one through teaching, the other through listening. |
Weaknesses
It would have been more helpful to have a more differentiated exploration of quadrilaterals when the class was in the computer lab. Many of the students accessed the material easily and got to work right away, while still others needed more guidance. It was difficult to maneuver through the room as efficiently as I wished, so it would have been very helpful to have a more in depth set of directions for those students who struggle with using technology.
In addition to the issue of access, it would have been a good idea to have an extension on the lesson since many of the students finished the activity in record time. Having something for the higher achieving students to do would have kept them engaged through the class period and would have given them a stronger desire to learn the material. In the future, I plan to create another activity using Geometer's Sketchpad for this exact reason. The activity would likely involve the students creating the quadrilaterals given certain parameters since the others all had the figures already created. This would allow the students to explore the software of Geometer's Sketchpad, would test their understanding of the objective, and would challenge them to further their understanding of quadrilaterals. |