FIN Commons

SUMMARY

In collaboration wit h the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this project aims to address the low persistence and success rates within developmental Math across the state. Instead of the standard three- to four-semester developmental path toward Calculus, this project will create an open-entry, one-semester accelerated course that prepares students for transfer-level Statistics. This course will be part of a one-year sequence within the Puente Learning Community at Los Medanos. The sequence will build on the spirit and principles of the Puente Program by addressing issues relevant to Latino(a) and Generation 1.5 students; utilizing student-centered, process-oriented pedagogy; and fostering student self-efficacy and leadership. The primary inquiry: How does this experiment impact student outcomes, including rates of transfer-readiness?

PLANS FOR DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

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-alouds or problem-solving)

Over the next two years we plan to gather and analyze the following types of data from individual students:

• Student interviews, written reflections, and other artifacts of student experience
• Student “think-alouds” on developmental math concepts
• Student work on selected math assignments and exams
• Student work on selected English assignments
• Student surveys

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?

At the core of our inquiry is an investigation of obstacles to transfer and a two-pronged hypothesis about how to improve transfer rates of underrepresented and under-prepared students. With a focus on Puente students, we are investigating the impact of identify, self-efficacy, and students’ perception of themselves as leaders on their progress toward transfer. In our first round of interviews with Puente students in spring 2009, we will focus on themes of literacy and identity, education and empowerment, and personal reflections on family, culture and life experience that underlie identity. These questions dovetail with issues investigated in the Puente English classes and will help us probe more deeply into the impact of classroom experience on students view of themselves. During the interviews, students will also analyze a graph of Puente transfer numbers and give us their perspectives on why students don’t transfer.

In addition to issues of identity, efficacy, and empowerment, difficulty in the developmental math sequence is also a major obstacle to transfer. The second prong of our project is an experimental redesign of the developmental math sequence that leads to transfer-level Statistics. In the fall Puente students, regardless of their math placement, will take a new accelerated developmental math course that looks and feels like a course in descriptive statistics, with a “just-in-time” approach to core concepts in arithmetic and algebra that are integral to data analysis skills used in transfer-level statistics. In the spring they will take transfer-level Statistics. In both math courses, students will use data from the existing sources, such as the census, and data they collect in their communities to investigate social justice and empowerment themes developed in the Puente English courses. Our FIN team will use the spring 2009 interviews, “think-alouds” and assessments of prealgebra students to inform the design of learning experiences for this new developmental math course.

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

• Student interviews, written reflections, and other artifacts of student experience

SP 09: videotaped interviews with 2-3 students in the current Puente cohort and 6 students currently enrolled in prealgebra (3 levels below transfer-level math);
FA 09 – SP 10: videotaped interviews of and written reflections by students in the new Puente cohort who are also enrolled in the experimental, accelerated developmental math course and then in the associated section of transfer-level Statistics.

• Student presentations and written work during the Lesson Study; as well as student essays based on the Focus Lesson

SP 09: Our Focus Lesson will span three class periods in March in the current Puente English class (at the level of Eng 1A).

• Student “think-alouds” on developmental math concepts

SP 09: videotaped “think-alouds” with 4 students currently enrolled in prealgebra;
FA 09 – SP 10: videotaped “think-alouds” and/or project presentations with students enrolled in the experimental, accelerated developmental math course and in the associated section of transfer-level Statistics.

• Student work on selected math assignments and exams

SP 09: written work from 30 prealgebra students on a diagnostic assessment of skills relevant to learning goals for the experimental math course;
FA 09 – SP 10: written work on selected assessments from the new experimental math course and the associated section of transfer-level Statistics, including student work on a national statistics exam (CAOS, the Comprehensive Assessment of Outcomes for a First Course in Statistics)

• Student work on selected English assignments

SP 09: essays written after the Lesson Study
FA 09 – SP 10: written work on selected assessments that include statistical evidence or issues relevant to identify, efficacy, and leadership

• Student surveys

SP 09: survey of 90 prealgebra students to identify preconceptions about math and views of self-efficacy relative to learning math;
FA 09 – SP 10: survey of Puente cohort views relative to impact of the Puente program on identity, self-efficacy, leadership, and the relevance of math to their view of the world.

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

We plan to collaboratively discuss data related to identity, efficacy, and empowerment soon after we collect it. The analysis of the math-related data will be done incrementally to inform curriculum development for the new developmental course.

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 collecting a variety of data from interviews, written reflections, and surveys that will help us investigate student identity, efficacy, and empowerment. We do not have a rubric or schema for analyzing this data yet. We anticipate our work will be inductive here with an eye to understanding the educational experiences and pedagogies that promote the development of academic identity and achievement, a personal sense of empowerment, as well as leadership. We have discussed using a pre-post design and looking at individual student growth in the Puente Learning Community next year. We have also discussed seeking the help of the LMC Student Life Coordinator, Dave Bellman, who has extensive experience with student leadership initiatives.

Some math-related data, such as the student work on math assessments, will be analyzed using rubrics based on those written by the LMC Math Department to determine student achievement of learning outcomes. In other math-related data, such as think-alouds, interviews, and surveys, Myra will look for patterns in students’ ways of thinking that may be helpful in designing or revising the learning experiences in the new developmental math course.

In the Lesson Study, student presentations will help us gauge comprehension of an assigned reading and their understanding of basic math concepts, such as percents, that are embedded in the article. We plan to inductively identify patterns in student thinking that will inform curriculum development for the Puente Learning Community in the fall. In a subsequent essay assignment, we plan to discuss student work with the goal of articulating criteria that will be useful for guiding instruction next fall.

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?

We need help with developing a schema for discussing and analyzing student data on identity, self-efficacy, and empowerment.

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.

Using Gregory Mantsios’s essay “Class in America-2003″ (from Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle, Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Thinking and Writing, 2007) students will discuss the following questions: Are there significant class differences among Americans? If these differences do exist, are they getting bigger or smaller, and do these differences have a significant impact on the way we live? Finally, does everyone in the United States really have an equal opportunity to succeed? We plan to use a jigsaw approach to the article, with students working in groups on sections of the essay. Students will identify main points, then choose and explain both a quote and a piece of embedded data that illustrate or support the main point of their assigned section. Finally, in preparation for an essay assignment, students will analyze graphs of data from the census and choose graphs that can be used as support their responses to the questions above.

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?

Our lesson study connects to both strands of our inquiry. Since Mantsio’s essay uses statistical evidence to support an analysis of the class differences in the U.S., this lesson will provide a context for a preliminary investigation of students’ understanding of basic math concepts when these concepts are embedded in a complex argument. This will inform the development of math curriculum that is relevant to the themes of social justice and community activism introduced in the Puente English class while also meeting students where they are in their understanding of fundamental math concepts. Through this lesson we will also investigate how reading strategies used in the English class can be integrated with strategies for “reading” statistical data. Finally, student presentations of their section of the essay will give us a glimpse into student perspectives on efficacy and identity as they reflect on how class differences relate to their experiences and their communities.

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).

Phase 1: Collaborative Planning: February 18 and February 25. Phase 1 involves a discussion of our own understanding of class as well as a dialogue about key ideas in Mantsios’s essay and our goals for student understanding of the statistical evidence used in the essay. In addition, Puente pedagogy is student-centered; this would be an opportunity to begin discussing teaching routines that would bring these practices into the math classroom. Finally, we will discuss the type of data to be collected.

Phase 2: Teaching/Observing the Lesson: March 10, 12, and 19th. The Focus Lesson is really a series of three lessons. The first two lessons focus on student comprehension of Mantsios’ article and the embedded statistical evidence. The final lesson is a set of activities designed to prepare students to write an argumentative essay that incorporates data from the census.

Phase 3: Debriefing/Analysis: End of March, early April. We will discuss student work during the group processing of sections of the article, student presentations of the article, and student work on analyzing graphs of data in preparation for their essay. This will be an early opportunity for us to begin to establish a common understanding of learning goals and desired levels of performance that will inform our collaborative work in our Learning Community in the fall.

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)?

During the series of three lessons and later in student essays, we plan to look for comprehension of the myths and realities surrounding class and wealth in the U.S.; this includes an understanding of statistical evidence used in the essay and provided from the census. We also plan to look for indications that students are developing social awareness that is informing identity and a sense of self-efficacy. We will analyze student work on “jigsaw” grids completed during the first lesson, student presentations done in the second lesson, written work and class discussion of statistical evidence from the census in the third lesson, and their written essays.

We do not plan to videotape the any portion of the Lesson Study.

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?

We need help with developing a schema for discussing and analyzing student data on identity, self-efficacy, and empowerment.

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 withdrawl)? 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.)

We plan to collect the following institutional data:

• Success in the experimental math course as it correlates with math placement scores
• Transcripts from the last 5 Puente cohorts to identify patterns that might suggest obstacles to transfer (including math pathways)
• Success rates and persistence rates during the Puente First Year Experience
• Completion of 30 transferable units, completion of transfer-preparedness status, and actual transfer rates for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Puente cohorts (of course this will be tracked after the completion of the FIN grant)
• Survey of impact on identity, efficacy, and leadership

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?

The ultimate goal of our FIN project is to increase transfer rates for underrepresented and underprepared students, specifically in this project Puente students.

3) 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?

We need help designing a good survey that will help us measure the impact of the Puente Program on identity, efficacy, and leadership.

Video Footage

We are asking each team to collect at least 10 hours of video footage in the Spring semester.

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

At this point we plan to conduct the videotaped interviews and think alouds described earlier.

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

Addressed earlier.

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?

We hope that there will be periodic training for student videographers. We will have students co-inquirers on board until the fall.

Inclusion of Student Voices

As noted during the Kick-Off Convening, an additional $1,000 will be made available to each team to support making student voices a central part of each Inquiry. We encourage you to be creative and draw upon students as co-inquirers who can provide expertise in helping you understand the problem/issue you are investigating. Please describe how you plan to include student voices in your Inquiry (e.g. hiring students to capture video footage, interview other students, review data from your inquiry and tell you what they see).

We plan to hire a small set of former Puente students as co-inquirers in the fall. We imagine that they will videotape, interview students, and help us review the data from our inquiry.

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.