Web Blogs and Effective Mathematical Discourse

I recently completed a research project for my masters degree involving web blogs and math instruction. Part of my project was to tell people about my results, so I am posting the below abstract of my work. If you are interested in the whole paper, please drop me a message in my inbox and I will send it to you.

thanks, tom

------------ research paper abstract ---------------
Eighth grade math students, including English language learners, were the participants of this study, which explored the use of web blogs to promote effective math discourse. Students worked together on free response math problems through the use of a web blog. Results of attitude scales, web blog scoring and teacher-made tests led to several conclusions. The study showed that web blogs can be used to promote effective math discourse. However, teacher monitoring of the blog discussions is necessary to ensure student engagement. The use of the web blogs intrinsically motivated the students to work on math word problems. The study provided minimal evidence that using web blogs would improve test scores. However, half of the students said that the study had a positive effect on their ability to explain their reasoning on math word problems.
------------ end abstract ---------------

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Scott on January 5, 2009 at 1:46pm

I'd be interested in seeing the research paper referenced here. I am fascinated by the idea of students engaging in mathematical learning in a text based format and improve mathematical reasoning by doing so. This is so necessary for students, though my own background was in history and language arts.

Permalink Reply by Tom Ciaccio on January 8, 2009 at 7:39pm

I put the research report up at:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcn3gkgh_8fwrrv5hm

The first two-thirds is the literature review, the actual detail starts with the section heading 'Method'

Permalink Reply by Steve Shann on January 5, 2009 at 3:35pm

I"m also interested in reading more.

Permalink Reply by Tom Ciaccio on January 8, 2009 at 7:39pm

I put the research report up at:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcn3gkgh_8fwrrv5hm

The first two-thirds is the literature review, the actual detail starts with the section heading 'Method'

Permalink Reply by Kate Fanelli on January 5, 2009 at 7:53pm

I'd like to hear more, too. I'm really wondering what the blog assignment was exactly, how you monitored what kids wrote, if there any inappropriate messages that you had to deal with (and if so, what you did about it), and when kids posted to the blog (during class, from home?).

I was just looking at Darren Kuropatwa's blog at: http://adifference.blogspot.com/

hich I was directed to by Steve (thanks Steve) and Carolyn Greenburg over in the discussion Math and Literacy Connections. He did a whole thing where kids made videos to show understanding of Calculus terms. That was a great exercise. I found the podcast reflection on the assignment to be interesting because the kids seemed reluctant to say that making the videos helped them learn more. This was for a variety of reasons, but it did get me thinking seriously about assigning things like this.

I'd really like to try it, but when I do I want to make sure that it will be challenging enough so the kids are really learning and communicating about that learning, easy enough so that they can actually do it, but not so easy that they can do it without thinking (anyone can regurgitate information in a blog or video just like they can copy it onto a piece of paper or into a power point).

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