Journals' Review

Article 1: MINUTE MATH: AN ACTION RESEARCH STUDY OF STUDENT SELF-ASSESSMENT

Article 2: CHANGING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE THROUGH ACTION RESEARCH

Article 3: COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH ON THE LEARNING AND TEACHING OF ALGEBRA: A STORY OF ONE MATHEMATICS TEACHER’S DEVELOPMENT

Comparison and Differentiation

• Related to mathematical learning and teaching
• Collaborative action research between mathematics teachers and university educators
• Reflection plays significant role in all the studies
• Required students’ higher-order thinking and metacognitive processes
• Setting: classroom
• Article 1: Focusing on the students’ self progression
  Article 2 & 3: Focusing on the effort of the teachers to bring changes toward their teaching methods
• Article 2 & 3: Longer timeline ( 2 years).
• Article 2: Result is described in narrative form
  Article 1 & 3: Result is presented in statistical form
• Article 1: Students ( samples ) aged 8 years old
  Article 2 & 3: Students (samples) aged 12-14 years old
• Article 1: 2 classes involved
  Article 2: 1 classes involved
  Article 3: 5 classes involved
  
  Analysis
  Article 1:
  This study focuses on third grade students regarding their self- assessment in memorizing the multiplication table. 2 classes were selected including the special education students. Suitable strategies of learning are introduced to the students. Students were evaluated every week for 10 weeks. Besides, students are required to set predicted score in their weekly test and a bar graph is plot to compare the predicted and true score. Students are also required to fill in the reflection sheet regarding their previous goals, study strategies and plans for the future weeks. The forms used by both classes were slightly different due to the fact that the students who undergo special education faced difficulties with the reflection sheet. Hence, their teacher modified the reflection sheet to include some response questions and drawing. Data from each class were first analyzed separately because the classroom assessment environment is different. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data from students’ bar graphs and reflection sheets. Qualitative data from student reflection sheets were summarized into tables by week and by question and inspected for patterns. These patterns were used to generate case studies for each student. Interpretive summaries were constructed for data teacher interviews. Graphs are shown for the predicted score, accurate score, min, median and maximum. Data is also shown in tabular form for strategies used reasons why strategies worked, reasons why strategies didn’t work and so on. There are also description on teachers’ interview and strategies used in textual explaination. The result analysis in this article is well organized and readers are able to gain a very clear picture of the whole study.
  
  Article 2:
  This article is mainly about a collaborative action research between a middle school teacher and a mathematics teacher educator that focused on the teacher’s attempts to change her instructional practice. Collaboration and support reflect on teachers’ beliefs and reflective practice are the stages taken during the study. During the collaboration, new sequences of the new topic are created together between the teacher and educator. Brainstorming activities are done by students to ensure that the objectives are fulfilled. Manipulative skills are implemented into the lesson taught. Opened-ended questions are used to check the understanding of the students. Observation is done by both of the teacher and educator to look at the result of efficiency of the changes of instructional practice they had made. When either one of them are teaching in front of the class, the other person will be the observer who would take note and jot down suggestion about things that can be improved. Besides, reflection is also one of the methods that the teacher used to analysis the pros and cons of the teaching method used. Observation and reflection are good ways to find out the efficiency of the changes in instructional practice. This study varies from others where we can’t gain the result through quantitative data. The method of observation helps the teacher to discover their weaknesses in teaching immediately and find ways to enhance their way of teaching.
  
  Article 3:
  This article described the changes of teaching algebra in a middle school. The teacher intended to teach students algebra through a manipulative program rather than the traditional textbook approach. The study had two phases. At first, the teacher taught using the manipulative method. After a period of time, the teacher taught in a non-manipulative style by using the textbook. Data is collected through an end-of-year survey, weekly student reflections, teacher observations and teacher reflections, student work samples and test scores and a whole-class interview. Data about students’ ability to solve algebraic equations were initially
  gathered through student work samples and student tests scores during both the ‘manipulative phase’ and the ‘book’ phase. Some students were also videotaped while demonstrating algebraic solutions. The second phase of the study took place the next academic year. The team investigated the same students’ high school experience to examine the ‘durability’ of the results
  of the manipulative experiences in phase one. Data is collected and presented through tabular form. Data regarding the overall grade average from both the textbook phase and the manipulative phase is compared. The overall grade includes the grades earned on homework, quiz, and test scores during this grading period. To get further information from the result, the data is broken down where comparison is done regarding class average performance during periods of manipulative work and textbook work before and after manipulative instruction. The study continued for the second year when the students went on to high school. Study is done on the interest of students in learning algebra through the textbook instruction and manipulative instruction. The data in this particular report is well organized. The author clearly showed the data in table where the readers can do their own comparison easily. Besides, the analysis of data is also well prepared. The description not only explains the quantitative data but explaination regarding the pattern of data gained is also provided. Reasons and suggestions are included in the result segment in the report. I feel that the author really put lots of effort during the whole process where she really eager to find out the reasons and solutions for the topic she carried out.
  
  Evaluation
  
  Article 1:
  The report is short but dense. The description is straight to the point. The way the author present the report is well organized. Information is grouped according to certain categories. The data analysis is mainly on the statistical explaination. The author did not state the reasons and further explaination on the pattern of data.
  
  Article 2:
  The report included literature reviews and introduction of some important keywords and terms in the study. This is a way to expose readers who are beginners in action research. Readers can understand in a better way. However, the report is in narrative form where readers need to read the whole part to gain all the elements such as the data analysis, results and so on. It is difficult for readers to trace back certain information in the report. They need to look back over the whole narrative report and it is wasting of time.
  
  Article 3:
  Like article 2, this report also included literature reviews and introduction of some important keywords and terms. Besides, there is also further explaination on the undergoing process. As a reader, we can even imagine the whole practice. The way the author present the result can be considered as one of the strength in this report. Statistical data is shown with the textual description regarding the reasons and solutions of the data pattern. The information is useful for others who are doing the similar research. The discussion of this report provides readers wide range of understanding regarding the research itself and also the person involved.
• Conclusion:
  
  Article 1:
  The result for this study is positive. The methods used are suitable for the chosen topic. Students who did their self assessment did increase their metacognitive level. However, differences in the classroom assessment environments will encourage students to perform differently. Therefore, we can say that students’ self assessment is context dependent. As the result shown, students will apply their selected study strategies in order to memorize the timetable. However, the students in this study are still young; therefore teachers should teach, guide and support them throughout the process of self assessment. Unlike the other articles, the focus of this article is narrow. It focuses mainly on the progression of self assessment among the students. It didn’t emphasis the impact on other parties such as the teacher involved through the entire research. The collaborative level among the teacher is also low where they actually didn’t discuss and do reflection in groups.
  
  Article 2:
  The result for this study is also positive. At the end of the day, the author realizes the ways to improve her own instructional practice in the class with the help of her collaborative friend. At the same time, she discovered the importance of having a collaborative partner during her action research. The collaborative partner is significant in this particular research due to the fact that the observation from the partner will provide useful feedback and suggestion which are the result analysis of the study. Unlike the other two study, this project followed models and protocols such as features from Mclaughlin (1990) and principles from Clarke’s (1994). The reflective and constructive model for understanding teacher change from Edwards (1996) was also one of the models used as the guidelines for this research. The research also concluded that the teacher is the final decision maker in the classroom which provides directions for the students for rooms of improvements in learning. In short, the research done by this author is not limited for her only but also beneficial to all the teachers out there who wish to change their teaching ways in order to improve themselves.
  
  Article 3:
  The result for this report is a little bit complicating. On the author’s point of view and results shown, she believes that students learn best through manipulative methods. Unfortunately, the teachers in secondary schools deny the efficiency of the method taught by the author. Hence, as a resolution to her problem, she intended to switch the teaching method from 8th grade to sixth grade. Her aim is to instill I believe that this research will be continued in the future and further report will be written regarding the progression of the research. This project includes wide range of study. The scope consist of the results from the data, the author’s reflections, decisions made after the resulting, the changes of the author’s professional growth and issues in collaboration research. It can be said that the author did a deep research on the selected topic and also the issues related with it. In short, action research is not a tool to further personal or professional development but a tool for teachers who seek for changes.
  
  Synthesis
• Article 1:
  Students in two third grade classes including special education students are involved in the ‘Minute Math’ project. It is a collaborative research conducted jointly by two university supervisors, three teachers, and three student teachers. This project involved students in predicting and graphing their test scores on a weekly evaluation test of the 0–9 multiplication facts. Students also reflected each week on their progress and the success of their studying and problem-solving strategies. Student self-assessment was successful in helping students to gain deeper experience on monitoring their own mathematics learning. Most of the students enjoyed participating in self assessment. Flash card is the most preferred strategy that applied in the assistance of memorization. Students will apply the strategies that they are comfortable with frequently. Though self assessment is a powerful tool in memorizing the multiplication facts, students still need the guidance of their teacher in order to be in the appropriate track.
  
  
  Article 2:
  Action research collaboration between a middle school mathematics teacher and a mathematics teacher educator that focused on the teacher’s attempts to change her instructional practice in her teaching methods was done. The middle school teacher wrote a narrative description of the collaboration and of the changes she made in her instructional practice as a result of the collaboration. An interpretive analysis of the teacher’s narrative by the teacher educator reveals that the collaboration itself supports the whole idea of the project. The teacher’s reflections on her own beliefs and practices which derived from the collaboration were important to her process of change. At the end of the day, collaborative research is proved to be useful in doing educational research whereby the middle school teacher couldn’t be successful without the assistance of her collaborative partner.
  
  Article 3:
  This collaborative research conducted by a university mathematics educator and an eighth-grade mathematics teacher investigating on the outcomes of implementing manipulative approaches in teaching algebra. This algebraic study serves as a vehicle for examining the questions, reflections, and changes brought forth by the mathematics teacher throughout the collaborative process. Within this paper, issues related to the collaborative action research in the mathematics classroom that are connected to the teacher’s transformation are discussed. These issues include the characterization of collaborative research and goals for collaborative action research as well as the challenges for collaborative action research in mathematics classrooms.