Over the last year I've followed all the email discussions and they seem to always involve courses where students are learning new material. Has anyone out there ever done a TBL course where the material covered is review for over half the class? I did, with moderate success, but I'd sure appreciate any feedback on ways to improve the process.
Over the past 9 months I used a customized version of TBL. I teach math in three pre-employment college programs including - electrical, plumbing and fuels technicians. The level of math required in my two consecutive math courses is equivalent to what should have been mastered in high school which is a prerequisite for program acceptance. Although I do get some older and mature students, it would be fair to say the majority are within a few years of graduating high school with a wide variety of skills. About one half have decent pre-existing skills and merely require a good refresher, one quarter are teachable but have never learned math well before and the remainder are not math heads at all.
I have each program once a week for 2 hours and 15 minutes. The class sizes are 20, 32 and 40 with team sizes of 6 or 7. Each week at the end of class I sent them home with a good study booklet which I made containing explanations, examples and practice exercises with answers. I also gave them an assignment to be completed in 8 days which was one day after their next class using and applying that same material. In addition, they had access to extra help at lunch 4 days a week. Furthermore, I posted PENCASTS using Livescribe technology showing/explaining several practice questions. Lastly, I organized all their resources into Blackboard.
A typical class would go as follows: they would have an iRAT quiz containing 15 MC questions followed by the tRAT using the IF AT scratch cards. After a short break I would explain and elaborate on any questions with which they had difficulty or make comments about any of the interesting explanations I heard during “team talk”. I followed up with a 20-25 minute "pre teach" of the material they would be studying over the next week. Lastly, I gave an application activity on the current week’s material. Every 4-5 weeks I also gave a large individual test and there was an exam at the end of each semester.
The good stuff:
My teams were well distributed for abilities with similar numbers of weak, average and strong members. Attendance was excellent because they knew if they missed a day they'd get a zero on their iRAT, tRAT, and activity (I did allow them to drop one iRAT, tRAT, and activity per semester). I have a big classroom with moveable desks and chairs. I give out candy when I hear good peer teaching. They get stickers, much to their chagrin in the beginning, for 80%+. The atmosphere is fun. The classes are much more engaging than the last 4 years of me teaching material for over 2 hours - material that was review to most anyway. The "smarter" students have less homework and no one sleeps anymore!
The not so good stuff:
1. Some students know most of the material already so they don't feel they need to study.
Solution? I will ask a few more really challenging and specific questions on the iRats and tRats. I will also no longer allow them to divvy up 4 points amongst different answers. I do hesitate on deliberately lowering the probable average score as it will also hurt those who work hard but truly struggle with math.
2. Some of the students with weaker abilities as well as those who were lazy and had low iRat scores rode the "team wave" with good tRat scores during the first semester. Their marks were higher than they should have been.
Solution 1- I increased the weighting for the iRats and decreased the weighting for the tRats in second semester.
Solution 2? I remember reading on listserv something about if one doesn't reach a preset score on their individual iRAT they don't get to earn the team mark. Would someone be able elaborate on how that works?
3. Not everyone has an easy time with teaching/refreshing math on their own so it took some finesse to sell it in the beginning.
Solution: I offered extra help at lunch 4 days a week and provided PENCASTS so they could watch/hear practice questions being solved. It wasn't enough because some were either too lazy or lacking the skills to do the work on their own. When I started a short pre-teach for the upcoming week's material I saw a big improvement. It wasn't all the material they were expected to relearn but it gave them some foundations to build upon.
4. Many of my students seem to have terribly low standards. They are fine with making 60% even though they could easily make 70's and 80's.
Solution: If there is a solution I'd love to hear it. The maturity level I deal is getting worse so I need to do something or accept mediocrity.
In the first semester I need to cover one topic each week - like fractions, percent, proportions, measurement conversions etc. Consequently, there isn't much time to build towards a big activity. My application activities were usually just a multistep challenging problem. But to be quite honest, I don't think they were always top notch. They were more like a little group assignment. Most of the fabulous activities I read about on list serv are large and the culmination of a unit covering several classes. If anyone could share how they do an application for a math problem, I'd love to see it to get some better ideas.
In the second course I have 5 weeks of algebra, 4 weeks of geometry, 3 weeks of trigonometry, so activities could carry over multiple weeks. I am working with the trades instructors to come up with some pipe bending projects involving geometry and trigonometry. I feel confident I will be able to construct some engaging activities for the second course with help from my coworkers who are excited to bring math into their subject as much as I am at bringing the trades to math class.
What I would like to request is an idea/example or two of math application problems using the 4 S method because as everyone always says - success is all in the strength of the application activities.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.
Kristie
Kristie McHugh
Instructor - Pre Science, Electrical, Plumbing and Fuels Technician
New Brunswick Community College
950 Grandview Avenue Saint John, NB E2J 4C5
Tel: 506-658-2713 | Fax: 506-643-2853
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | www.nbcc.ca<http://www.nbcc.ca/>
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