Virginia Mathematics Teacher Fall 2016

ever, things seem to be getting worse again. U.S. beekeepers saw annual losses of 42.1 percent between April 2014 and April 2015, according to a new federal survey. The Central Virginia Beekeepers Association needs our help. They want us to develop community outreach program to inform the public about the importance of bees and what we can do to help bee thrive. In this unit, students explored ecosystems, food webs, niches, and human impacts on ecosystems by taking on the role of a Junior Bee Advocate . Litera­ cy skills were integrated throughout the unit. For example, students read expert texts and answer guiding questions and completed a vocabulary ac­ tivity. Mathematics skills could include making charts of collected data and analyzing population data collected from a simulation (Figure 2). In another example for a 3 rd grade unit on changes in matter, teachers presented students with the problem question, “What is matter? What are the properties of various types of matter?” through the scenario: The country of Fluvania has stolen the con- fidential Hasbro play-doh recipe. We have purchased the last samples of play-doh available in the United States. It is our mis- sion to duplicate Hasbro’s original recipe to the best of our ability. In this unit, students took on the role of Hasbro In­ vention Consultants and explored what is matter, distinguishing characteristics of solids, liquids, and gases, and changes in phases of matter. Literacy skills were integrated through read alouds, turn and talks, use of OWLs, and use of Anchor Charts throughout the unit. Mathematics skills were inte­ grated throughout the unit as students made meas­ urements of the mass and volume of solids and liq­

tion of the VISTA ELIS PD suggest that a Learn- Try-Implement PD model can build K-5 teachers’ confidence and understanding of pedagogical ap­ proaches that increase emphasis on interdiscipli­ nary (e.g. literacy, math, science) instruction. Inte­ grating content across different disciplines using a PBL approach helps students understand how con­ tent is interconnected in the real world and not iso­ lated into silos. This is particularly true for science and mathematics as evidenced by the ways in which mathematics content was naturally integrat­ ed into the teachers’ science PBL units. Further, teachers perceived PBL as a way to hook students into learning in authentic ways, which research in­ dicates is important in supporting student learning (e.g. MacMath, Wallace, & Chi, 2009). Finally, teachers reported positive perceptions about the opportunity to collaborate and plan a unit together within or across schools; many of the PBL units were developed in teams from different schools. Thus, opportunities for teachers to learn and plan together remains critical. Future research will ex­ plore student achievement following participation in the teacher-generated PBL units developed dur­ ing the VISTA ELIS PD. Bell, R.L., Maeng, J.L., Konold, T., & Whitworth, B.A. (2015). Professional development to support elementary teachers’ understand- ing and implementation of reforms-based science: Randomized controlled trial. A pa­ per for the annual meeting of American Ed­ ucation Research Association, Chicago, IL. Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers' professional development: To­ ward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38, 181- References

uids using balances and beakers and recorded these in data tables. More advanced students could calculate the densi­ ty of the solid objects from these data based on the equation D = mass/ volume to determine if their playdoh recipe has a similar density to the actual playdoh. Conclusions and Impli- cations Results from the first year of implementa­

Figure 2 . Example population simulation data and student graph. (Simulation screenshot re­ trieved from www.explorelearning.com.)

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 1

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