The time has come to fill you guys in on the gaming experiment/project my class was a part of! If you were not following my older blogs, my math classes as well as others in my building tested the effectiveness of a computer programming game that also taught math in comparison to a traditional way of teaching (we used IXL as "traditional"). These are unofficial results that have not been published yet and therefore I can't be too specific and can only paraphrase, but I'll do my best!
One observation was that boys and girls were both equally engaged in the program. I initially thought that this would be a pretty obvious observation, however the facilitator of the results mentioned that because of the programming aspect of the game itself, they were thinking males would have more engagement. I'm glad to hear it was equal. This could be something to encourage more women in the math and science fields of engineering and computer programming!
Another observation was that the game had a greater learning impact on the lower level of students. (By lower level I mean the students in the earlier course offered at the school). This made a lot of sense to me because the higher class that we used had already learned that particular math concept so I expected the other group to show more growth.
This last observation is one that I will primarily focus on. Of all the sub-groups, boys from primarily spanish-speaking households had the MOST engagement on the game, and the LEAST engagement on the traditional track. I wonder why that is? The game was progressive and went step by step like any normal lesson would. In fact, I actually found it more difficult than some of the progressions I ask for in class. So I wonder why his particular subgroup needs more engagement? What is their lifestyles makes them require more interactivity and realness?
Something to think about...
Hi Erin,
ReplyDeleteI totally loved how the girls were "equal" to the boys in this situation. I wish I had this type of encouragement when I was in school. Being in this program has showed me how much I love technology and how much more I have grown and learned through it. As for the engagement of the primarily spanish-speaking group, I wonder if it is because verbal communication in English still doesn't completely "click" whereas on a computer reading it is different? I used to work for many years with spanish speaking countries and have even taken classes, I still can't speak it, but I can read it fairly well. Maybe the same is true with students who don't use english 24/7?