Review & Evaluate a Spreadsheet Integration project
In the project entitled "Wildlife Sampling" by Judy Young, she works with 7th graders as they learn and apply concepts of estimation and proportions. Mrs. Young does an excellent job at taking a mathematical concept, and making it very real for the students. She starts out the lesson with a relevant problem to solve, using a current events article from the newspaper. She recognizes that many students are probably interested in issues like agriculture, fish and game, and water for power, irrigation, and recreation. By integrating all of these ideas as she presented the problem, she was very likely to engage most students' interest, and therefore improve motivation. They took some time to discuss the problem as a class, so they were all on the same page. Once the students understood about the salmon population, and how that related to important issues that affected the students personally, they moved on to the activity, which was counting fish in their "rivers" and estimating the population from samples. Students were divided in to groups of 4, and they used a Dixie cup to scoop out goldfish crackers. These fish were then tagged, by replacing them with a pretzel fish to stand out, and then the counting continued. Students really enjoyed this process because they got to snack along the way. Mrs. Young used a spreadsheet template on a smart board to guide them through the process. Once the date was collected, they worked in pair to create spreadsheets on various computers. After that, they were able to discuss conclusions as a class, and once again tie it back to the real problem at hand.
Overall, this lesson was great! Students were engaged and their interest was high. It integrated ideas of math, science, and even history, which helps to create workable knowledge instead of simply understanding an isolated formula. It was creative and hands on, and students had to take responsibility for their own learning to record data and make a spreadsheet, which integrated technology. I think she did a great job, and her learning objectives were definitely met.
- How would you adapt it for your grade level and/or discipline area? In other words, how would you change the lesson to fit your students’ needs?
With this lesson, I could use the main concept as a model for problem solving in my social sciences classes. For example, if I was teaching a social science class at the same 7th grade level, they would really be able to grasp this concept of counting and estimation. I would have to change the lesson to match my discipline area, however. This could be accomplished by instead of talking about wildlife, talking about voting trends and patterns in American History. We will have previous discussed some voting laws, and the history of voting importance and practice. By the time we got to a lesson like this, students would understand the voting process. Therefore, the purpose of this lesson would be for students to compare voting trends from an earlier era, such as the 1930's, to the current year, and the most recent presidential election. Keeping the same format, students would be divided into groups; however, half of the class would be responsible for collecting data from the past, and half would collect data from the present. Their bags would contain the correct sampling population for their specified time. The medium of snack foods could still be used through M&Ms, skittles, or some other type of candy that varies by color. Even though this is a social studies class, I could speak with the math teacher and make sure students could understand the math involved, and it would be a good way to integrate curriculum. After they counted and "tagged" voting populations and figured out their data, they would still make spreadsheets in partners, but one partner would bring the information gained from the past, and the other from the present. Their spreadsheet would contain both sets of data. Then, the most important part would be to compare the date and make inferences on what it meant for voting trends today. Are we more involved? Less involved? What are factors that could effect that. It would be a real life problem that would introduce them to ideas of citizenship and voting rights and responsibilities.
With an older student base, this project would have to change to keep their interest level up. They would have to pull actual research themselves, rather than relying on research from myself. They could draw further conclusions, and reflect and elaborate on them through some type of written project. The actual counting and spreadsheet usage, however, might be a fun way for 9th graders to participate in a hands on activity, even though it may be a bit easy. It can be supplemented with enough content and real life application that it will be relevant to their learning.
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