Laptops Take Over Fact Station

Student uses laptop during fact station

Laptops Transform Fact Station

This year Tabitha’s school purchased a classroom set of laptops for teachers to check out for their students.  We have always talked about how nice it would be to incorporate iPads or more individualized forms of technology at the game or fact stations, but money was the main obstacle.  This purchase caused Tabitha to be able to check out the laptops each day during math workshop.  She incorporated the laptops this week during fact station.  So far, students have used the laptops to play fact games such as Multiplication Grand Prix and other math games that build fact fluency.  To allow students easy access to these teacher-selected links, Tabitha linked the fact sites to her class website.  

Site used for fact practice

As this is still a novel change to the math workshop routine, we look forward to seeing the long-term impacts that this change has on student learning (mastery of basic facts) and engagement.  So far, however, Tabitha has noticed increased student motivation (engagement), resulting in easier management of student behavior during math workshop.  

Assessing Laptop Use Efficacy

So all these anecdotal assumptions about student learning are great, but where’s the proof (i.e. empirical evidence) that this change will lead to student learning?  Enter mobymax.com.   We are anxious to see its usefulness in the classroom.  The idea with having students use this site is that it will allow Tabitha to create student profiles→ students will play math games--> and the system will then track each student’s progress through the fact games-->the site provides Tabitha with data on student growth, and students can also view their progress.  Did we mention that the games are aligned with Common Core!?  Double yeah!  So, the hope is that Tabitha will be able to seamlessly implement this resource, via the laptops, during fact station.  

Student profiles reveal progress

We'll keep you posted! 

T&C

Assessment

Assessment drives the instruction in our math workshop. 

Types of assessments

1. At the beginning of the year, students take a district assessment on the computer.  They will then take this at the middle and end of the year to track growth. 
2. Third graders in our building also take a GLE (Missouri's Grade Level Expectations) assessment; which they will also take at the end of every quarter.
3. We give weekly pre- and post- assessments at the beginning and end of each week on the week's skill.
4. On Fridays, we hold one-on-one conferences with students to remediate previously taught skills and/or the current week's skill(s).
5. Throughout the week, we use exit slips, slate practice, cooperative learning, the interactive whiteboard, and self-checks.
6. Students also complete self-assessments throughout math workshop.  These are in the forms of consensograms (voting with stickers or dots), affinity diagrams, and paper-pencil self-assessments.



We give weekly pre- and post- assessments at the beginning and end of each week on the week's skill.  We graph the results on a class graph.  The stars denote weeks that 100% of students met proficiency. 



Student ownership


To provide students with timely and effective feedback, students are given graded assessments to record on individual proficiency graphs.  They track their progress with weekly skills, so that they can look back at the graph to identify which skills need to be revisited.  The graph provides a visual reminder of the goal of proficiency. 


This is the individual quarterly GLE graph.  Students graph the results from their quarterly GLE assessment.  The star represents proficiency on 3rd grade skills (80% or above).



This is the individual weekly graph.  Students record the date at the bottom with the week's skill.  They graph the results from their weekly post-test.  The star represents proficiency for that skill.  4/5 or 5/5 is proficient (80% or above).

Once students graph their results from weekly post-assessments, they reflect on what strategies worked to attain the skill and brainstorm ideas for improvement.  These ideas are shared as a class and recorded weekly on a class bulletin board.