Artifact 5 Analysis
Context:
In the upcoming week, students have a midterm, however I wanted to create a fun way to review the material instead of just yakking away about the facts they have to know. In this sense, differentiating instruction to get the same point across, but just in a different way that students might find more appealing. I heard of this Speed Dating review activity in Science Methods, and decided to try it out. The premise of the game was that students would be working on different chemistry problems with different partners. Half of the class had assigned seats and stayed there the whole time, while as the rest of the class rotated from partner to partner in an orderly fashion. Each time they got to a new partner, they would have 1 minute to solve a chemistry problem. In this sense, this activity ties in many of the multiple intelligences. It ties in the kinesthetic intelligence, as students are moving, the logical-mathematical, as they are trying to solve different problems, the interpersonal because they are working with each other, the spatial because for some of the problems, they had to draw out a figure, and the verbal-linguistic, because they are talking to each other about the answer.
After the speed dating activity, students were asked 2 questions in a survey:
1. Rate this activity from 1-10 and explain your answer.
2. Did this activity help you to review?
Click here to view survey repsonses.
Artifact Analysis:
As you can see in the survey responses, overall, the average of the ratings was an 8.59. The main reasons that people gave for liking the review was that it was fun (15 people said this), and because they got to review the material (10 people said this). I liked that people said that it was fun, because that was the goal of the activity, but what interested me was that students said that they liked it because it helped them to review activity. For the other half of the question (did this activity help you to review), 23 people said that it did.
Maybe because they were working with other people on the problems, this helped them to remember the
material and figure out the right answers to the problems. Also, the time issue may have been a factor as well—maybe because I gave them such a short amount of time for each problem, they were pressing themselves to remember the material, which might have helped them to. But will they remember the material just as well on a test, when they’re actually getting graded on it, and when they don’t have the help of a partner?
The time issue was also a topic that 5 students brought up in their comments—they felt pressed for time, and wanted more of it. One person even mentioned that “… it was so rushed that if I didn't know the answer, I wouldn't learn anything.” This was a really good point, because it was very much either you remember it, or you don’t. In class, we didn’t get time to review the material either, but in the future if I were to do this activity again, I would devote the whole period to it. I would do the actual activity in the first half of the period, and then I would review the answers to all of the problems with them.
Furthermore, their midterm scores also supported that they retained the content material, as the average was a 78, and only two people failed, while as 7 people got an A.
Relation to Focus of Inquiry:
This activity demonstrated that using a different way of reviewing material can help to increase the retention of material. In this case, I am defining retention of material as remembering what the concepts were from before, and then applying them to concepts now. As I mentioned before, 15 people said that this activity helped them to review as a reason for why they liked this activity, and 23 people in total said that this review activity helped them to review. The downside was the time factor—some people mentioned that they felt pressed for time, and this was not helping them to review. This is the downside to differentiating in this manner, because when you differentiate instruction, not everyone may be equally happy with the methodology, depending on who they are as learners, and which of the multiple intelligences they are strongest in.
Furthermore, it was interesting that 3 people mentioned that they liked working with other people in this activity. This was the interpersonal intelligence that was being used. Maybe I should try using it more often, because it seemed like the whole class benefited from having the help of a partner.
In the future, I would like to do more review activities like this one—in which many different intelligences are all tied together so as to review the material while making it fun for the students, and tying in multiple intelligences so that as many of them are reached as possible.
Dimension of Teaching and Learning (Contexts of Education):
In this case, the mediating forces in this activity were the spatial orientation of the classroom and the community norms in the classroom. First off, the spatial orientation of the room was a big factor in this activity, because the students had to be set up in a very specific manner so as to allow the moving students to be able to switch partners easier.
Secondly, the community norms in the classroom were a mediating force in this activity, because they are used to having as much time as they need to complete a problem, and I normally give them extra time if they are not finished, but in this activity, students were pressed for time, which many of them were not used to, and thus this activity may not have been as effective for those students.
In the upcoming week, students have a midterm, however I wanted to create a fun way to review the material instead of just yakking away about the facts they have to know. In this sense, differentiating instruction to get the same point across, but just in a different way that students might find more appealing. I heard of this Speed Dating review activity in Science Methods, and decided to try it out. The premise of the game was that students would be working on different chemistry problems with different partners. Half of the class had assigned seats and stayed there the whole time, while as the rest of the class rotated from partner to partner in an orderly fashion. Each time they got to a new partner, they would have 1 minute to solve a chemistry problem. In this sense, this activity ties in many of the multiple intelligences. It ties in the kinesthetic intelligence, as students are moving, the logical-mathematical, as they are trying to solve different problems, the interpersonal because they are working with each other, the spatial because for some of the problems, they had to draw out a figure, and the verbal-linguistic, because they are talking to each other about the answer.
After the speed dating activity, students were asked 2 questions in a survey:
1. Rate this activity from 1-10 and explain your answer.
2. Did this activity help you to review?
Click here to view survey repsonses.
Artifact Analysis:
As you can see in the survey responses, overall, the average of the ratings was an 8.59. The main reasons that people gave for liking the review was that it was fun (15 people said this), and because they got to review the material (10 people said this). I liked that people said that it was fun, because that was the goal of the activity, but what interested me was that students said that they liked it because it helped them to review activity. For the other half of the question (did this activity help you to review), 23 people said that it did.
Maybe because they were working with other people on the problems, this helped them to remember the
material and figure out the right answers to the problems. Also, the time issue may have been a factor as well—maybe because I gave them such a short amount of time for each problem, they were pressing themselves to remember the material, which might have helped them to. But will they remember the material just as well on a test, when they’re actually getting graded on it, and when they don’t have the help of a partner?
The time issue was also a topic that 5 students brought up in their comments—they felt pressed for time, and wanted more of it. One person even mentioned that “… it was so rushed that if I didn't know the answer, I wouldn't learn anything.” This was a really good point, because it was very much either you remember it, or you don’t. In class, we didn’t get time to review the material either, but in the future if I were to do this activity again, I would devote the whole period to it. I would do the actual activity in the first half of the period, and then I would review the answers to all of the problems with them.
Furthermore, their midterm scores also supported that they retained the content material, as the average was a 78, and only two people failed, while as 7 people got an A.
Relation to Focus of Inquiry:
This activity demonstrated that using a different way of reviewing material can help to increase the retention of material. In this case, I am defining retention of material as remembering what the concepts were from before, and then applying them to concepts now. As I mentioned before, 15 people said that this activity helped them to review as a reason for why they liked this activity, and 23 people in total said that this review activity helped them to review. The downside was the time factor—some people mentioned that they felt pressed for time, and this was not helping them to review. This is the downside to differentiating in this manner, because when you differentiate instruction, not everyone may be equally happy with the methodology, depending on who they are as learners, and which of the multiple intelligences they are strongest in.
Furthermore, it was interesting that 3 people mentioned that they liked working with other people in this activity. This was the interpersonal intelligence that was being used. Maybe I should try using it more often, because it seemed like the whole class benefited from having the help of a partner.
In the future, I would like to do more review activities like this one—in which many different intelligences are all tied together so as to review the material while making it fun for the students, and tying in multiple intelligences so that as many of them are reached as possible.
Dimension of Teaching and Learning (Contexts of Education):
In this case, the mediating forces in this activity were the spatial orientation of the classroom and the community norms in the classroom. First off, the spatial orientation of the room was a big factor in this activity, because the students had to be set up in a very specific manner so as to allow the moving students to be able to switch partners easier.
Secondly, the community norms in the classroom were a mediating force in this activity, because they are used to having as much time as they need to complete a problem, and I normally give them extra time if they are not finished, but in this activity, students were pressed for time, which many of them were not used to, and thus this activity may not have been as effective for those students.