Undergraduate Research Day

I attended the 3:15-4:15 session of undergraduate research day about math education and technology. The presenters seemed to have a little trouble before it started because there was technology difficulties with the computers and the differences between Macs and PCs. It seemed to be resolved within a few minutes and everything worked. There were four presenters and each had a different topic that was under the umbrella of education whether it was in elementary school or college.

The first student that presented talked about ability grouping in schools. Ability grouping is when children are grouped into leveled classrooms based on their abilities. She also mentioned the “Binet’s Intelligence Test” in her presentation. This presenter seemed very comfortable in front of an audience. She had an excess amount of writing on her slides that she read from but her voice did not waver and she knew what she was talking about.

The next presenter talked about discourse in the classroom. Discourse is the communication students offer through ideas in groups and responses given or open-ended questions. She observed how students used discourse in math classrooms. She was surprised to find a number of students using it and responding well to discourse. This presenter was visibly more nervous. She knew her material well and did not read directly from her slides but her voice shook a bit as she spoke.

Math in Focus is a program used to help teach math in classrooms. It originated in Singapore and is now being incorporated in American classrooms. The third presenter looked to see how the new program being integrated into classrooms affected students and the way the teachers teach. She also looked to see how it affected teachers who had been teaching for a long time as opposed to new teachers.

The last presenter talked about co-teaching and the affects it has on teaching practices of college faculty. She looked at three pairs of teachers at SNHU and what they thought it the process of working together. She stressed the point that the professors got to pick their partners so there was a lot of positive feedback about the program. 

Overall, the presenters did a great job. Their PowerPoints were organized and their thoughts were well articulated. I think the third presenter about the Math in Focus program did the best job on presentation alone. She was confident and knew what she was talking about. She also did not have too much information on her PowerPoint. She was not just reading from the slides but taking what was on the slides and using it to get her point across. I found the first presenter’s topic about ability grouping to be the most interesting. I have always found leveled classes to be an interesting topic to look into and see how they work and the benefits.