FIN Commons

Summary

This project focuses on students in the Umoja Scholars Programs at Los Medanos College and San Diego City College.  Umoja Community campuses utilize cohort and learning community models in concert with student services to improve the success and retention of African-American community college students.  Umoja classrooms involve a student-centered learning environment, timely and formative assessment, an emphasis on community, and the perspective that students are active participants in the construction of knowledge and reality, rather than passive recipients of the curriculum.  This inquiry will investigate these grounding assumptions in the context of Math classrooms, with Umoja faculty from across the state collaborating to develop curricula and analyze student outcomes.  The primary question: how can an environment be created in a developmental Math class that validates, empowers and encourages the development of confidence and consciousness in African-American students, thereby facilitating their success and persistence?

 

Zoom-Lens Inquiry: Focusing on Students

 

1)   What data will you gather and analyze on individual students? (E.g. student work, self-reflections, interviews, videotaped think-aloud or problem-solving)

 

      We will use student written and posted discussion journals and videotaped interviews as data to analyze on individual students.

 

2)   How do you imagine this data will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating? In other words, how does the data connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry?

 

      A large part of our inquiry is understanding what environment is necessary for student success in our math classes, therefore we imagine the collection of journals and videotapes will allow us to receive feedback and input from students to determine what they perceive their needs are in the classroom and/or how we create the environment that will meet their needs.  The focus of our inquiry includes being aware of the issues African American mathematics students face and investigating ways to help them experience success in their math education paths.  The data we collect is directly from students and will help us design and create the environment we are aiming for.

 

 

3)   When and how will you collect this data? (E.g. Which classes will you target? Where will you conduct interviews or think-aloud?)

 

We will collect this data from the Umoja math classes that we teach at Los Medanos College and San Diego City College.  We will conduct interviews on our perspective campuses. This data will be collected throughout the first 3 semesters of the project.

 

4)   When will you analyze this data? (E.g. mid-semester team retreat, after lesson-study session, at the end of the semester; )

 

      We will begin to analyze the first set of data after the lesson-study.  We will assess the journal topics we have used to determine if we are getting the information we want from the students.  This will also help us plan our interview process and decide what questions we need to ask to help inform our inquiry. We will use an ongoing process of data collection, data analysis, reflection of the data, revisions to our plan, data collection, and so on.

 

5.) How will you analyze the data? (e.g. analyzing student work with a rubric or analytic frame like Polya’s method for problem-solving or Perry’s scheme for student development; analyzing themes in student self-reflections according to their performance in the class – how did the responses of students who did not pass compare/contrast with students who performed well?)

 

We are going to use students to help us analyze our data to ensure we are defining the patterns clearly.  Students will help us to identify patterns and themes in the stories they share through journaling and interviews.  We will also work with one another to analyze the data we collect from our individual classes.  We hope through this analysis to develop a summary of patterns that we can use to make valid generalizations for our population of students.

 

6)   What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? How can your Inquiry Coach support you in this phase of your Inquiry?

 

One question is how involved should/can students be in the analysis of the data element of this inquiry?

 

Mid-Range Shots: Focusing on the Classroom

 

1)   Please name ONE specific lesson in a particular course that will give you a good vantage point for observing student learning relevant to your Inquiry.

 

Our lesson study will be: “Group work as a strategy for learning mathematics”.  Students will be given an in-class group quiz.  After the group quiz students will complete an assessment of their group work.  Students will assess their group’s personal responsibility during the quiz by completing a survey where they will:

·         Choose an analogy of how their group process worked

·         Comment on each member’s contribution and participation including themselves

The second part of the lesson study will involve an impromptu role playing activity where a group of selected students model poor group work and another group of selected students model excellent group work.  After this activity the class will discuss and record themes.  They will answer another series of question on the survey which asks:

·         How did you see yourself in the role playing activity?

·         Which group member could you identify with?

·         Which group could you identify being  in?

·         What could/couldn’t you identify with in the activity?  

 

2)   How do you imagine the Lesson Study will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating about students and their learning? In other words, how does it connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry?

 

One assumption we are making in this inquiry is that the majority of our target population enters our doors with a lot of psychological and emotional baggage as it relates to their mathematics confidence and skills.  Our hypothesis is that if we create an environment where students feel safe to make mistakes, and learn and understand the importance of community, their confidence and success will increase.  By conducting this lesson study, we will get a small picture of whether we can change student’s perceptions of the importance of community in the classroom. Our hope is that by allowing students to identify and demonstrate poor and excellent group work, and by defining and discussing it, this will contribute to a greater sense of responsibility and accountability among the students. This lesson study will help us see from the student’s perspective whether the specific community building activity of group work is perceived as an important aspect to their success.  We will subsequently be able to connect whether working in groups can be used as a strategy to help students learn and succeed in mathematics.

 

     

3)   When and how will your team conduct this Lesson Study? Please detail the timeframes and participants for the three parts of the Lesson Study process (collaboratively planning the lesson, teaching/observing the lesson, and debriefing/analyzing videotapes & student work from the lesson).

 

Collaboratively planning the lesson

Through a series of phone conversations and email discussions during the first two weeks in March, our team will discuss how we each implement community building in our classes.  We will each videotape class sessions where the community building model is being implemented and share those videos with each other to inform our discussion. During this planning process we want to get a picture of what community building looks like in each of our classes.  We will also design the group quiz, the survey, and the analogy options that students will be using as part of the lesson.

 

Teaching/observing the lesson

Our team is spread across two parts of the state so we will coordinate visits to each other’s campuses to do the lesson study in April.  We will duplicate the lesson study in both of our classes.

 

Debriefing/analyzing

During our debriefing session in April, we will look for patterns and themes in the student responses to the survey, as well as discuss our observations of what was occurring in the groups during the study. We will also analyze and discuss the student’s perception of working in groups. 

 

4)   What kinds of things will the observers be looking/listening for during the lesson? What artifacts of student learning and student experience will the team collect during the lesson? Will you videotape any portion of this process (pre-planning, lesson, debrief)?

           

      The observers will focus on the contribution and full participation of the group members.  Observers will also notice the reaction of the student audience during the role playing activity. We will videotape our team discussion portion of this lesson study but not the student portion.  We will collect the group quiz and the survey to analyze the data.

           

 

5) What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? How can your Inquiry Coach support you in this phase of your Inquiry?

 

            Is this slice small enough and big enough??

 

Wide-Angle Lens: Focusing on Larger Trends in Institutional Data

 

1)   What data from your Institutional Research Office will you integrate into your Inquiry? For example, will you look at patterns of student success, defined as grades of CR, A,B C? Retention rates (completion of semester without withdrawal)? Persistence from one semester to the next, or from one course to the next in a sequence? Comparisons of student outcomes disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, age? Data from surveys on student engagement? For a sample Inquiry using this kind of data, go to http://facultyinquiry.net and look for the category “Using Institutional Research,” then see the Learning Community Impact study posted there.)

 

• • Success, retention, and persistence rates of students in our Umoja math classes and
  • Student self-reporting on pre and post tests to  analyze the effectiveness of community building strategies on their success retention and persistence. We will work with the research office to design the self-reporting pre and post tests and to help analyze the data we collect.

 

        

2)   How do you imagine this data will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating? In other words, how does the data connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry?

 

This data will help us determine #1) if Umoja mathematics students are achieving success (as compared to non-Umoja math classes) #2) if community building plays a role in that success.

 

 

Video Footage

1)   Beyond plans detailed above, please describe any additional footage you intend to gather.

 

The 10 hours will include the planning session where we record a particular class addressing community building to share with one another and also the debriefing session of the lesson study. We will also use film to record the student’s feedback to the group assignment, as well as interviews about their experiences.

 

2)   How will this footage inform the central questions of your Inquiry?

 

This footage will bring to life student’s understanding of the environment necessary for their success.  By viewing and looking at themes of the student interviews, we hope to learn more about what that environment looks like and how we can create it and teach others to create it.

 

 

3)   What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? Is there  any support you’d like from the FIN Leadership Team in this area?

 

What form would you like the 10 hours of footage to be in?  Raw footage, or edited into an organized movie?

 

 

Inclusion of Student Voices

A group of LMC Umoja students have been hired to work on the video team.  These students will be paid to attend trainings where they will learn how to use the equipment and editing software, and paid for taping and conducting interviews.   We will also use students to help us look for themes in the footage and journals.

 

 

Timeline/Calendar

So that we can visualize how the work will proceed over the next several months, please give a timeline for when the above components will occur. It can be in either calendar or outline format.

 

 March (week 1-2): Plan lesson study design

March (week 3): Videotape individual class sessions and mail to each other

March (week 4): Analyze class recordings and revise lesson study plan

April : A’kilah visit Misael’s class for lesson study, film student response

April: Misael visit A’kilah’s class for lesson study, film student response

April: Debrief and analyze lesson study results

May: Design research plan for fall.

BUDGET OUTLINE

Spring 2009 

Stipend (lead faculty)                                   $5500

Stipend (team participants)                       $2250

Stipends for collaborators                          $800

Supplies                                                           $200

Student video team                                       $500

            TOTAL                                                $8750