Blog #1
TECHNOLOGY-ENRICHED LEARNING
Wednesday, February 7th, 2024
Integrating education technologies meaningfully expands how teachers tap into diverse learning needs while fueling engagement and ownership. As middle grades mathematics transitions towards deeper interdisciplinary application, responsively leveraging advancing digital tools becomes pivotal for empowering every learner's path toward rigorous content mastery and transferable real-world skills. Yet with today's vast and ever-changing edtech landscapes, discernment remains vital. The most equitable and enriching platforms offer customizable features accommodating readiness variations, flexible scaffolds adjusting supports based on continual analytics, creative workspace promoting student voice through choice, and interactive modeling enabling customizable conceptual visualization. Evaluating programs against benchmarks like Universal Design for Learning further ensures built-in accessibility for disabling barriers to active participation. This blog shares instructional technologies evaluated through an equity-driven lens seeking to uplift mathematical success for all. By thoughtfully embedding digital tools intersecting the affective and cognitive realms, classrooms transform into inspired laboratories revealing a spectrum of excellence less visible when restricted to narrow uniform measures.
GeoGebra is free graphing software allowing customizable, collaborative graphing and geometry explorations through hands-on construction of points, shapes, equations etc. Its intuitive click-and-drag features combined with diverse measurement and algebra tools provide easy differentiation accommodating visual, logical-mathematical and kinesthetic styles through scaffolded investigations of relationships and patterns. Whether teacher guided lessons on plotting functions or independent projects modeling geometric art compositions, GeoGebra taps creativity and choice building student ownership through pursuing intrinsically motivating visualizations reflecting personal interests (Hohenwarter & Lavicza, 2007).
Similarly, Desmos Activity Builder facilitates building online math activities with interactive slides, digital manipulatives and built-in teacher monitoring adapting supports like leveled hint sequences or strategically grouped peer workspaces. Desmos’ game-like environment helps overcome learning barriers through inviting experimentation containing embedded progress tracking. Like GeoGebra, Desmos mathematically motivates through spotlighting students’ emerging perspectives.
ALEKS is an artificially intelligent online learning platform using periodic assessments to track student math mastery, then deliver personalized instruction and practice from a comprehensive curriculum spanning over 3,000 objectives. Its adaptive cognitive questioning pinpoints knowledge gaps for focus while self-directed use accommodates pace variance (Hsiao et al., 2017). Whether advancing steadily through objectives or reviewing struggles detected from periodic progress checks, ALEKS provides tailored content responsively. Teacher dashboard insights also inform whole-group just-in-time instruction shifts addressing collective hurdles. Research on AI-driven personalized math supports shows higher self-efficacy and retention compared to static grade level materials alone. Blending ALEKS’ responsive scaffolds with holistic curriculum sustains accessibility advancing every learner’s mathematical agency.
Imagine Math provides a digital supplemental math curriculum spanning 3-8th grade standards offering scaffolded instruction through video lessons, formative assessments and practice sets adaptive to students' needs based on performance data. Its direct explicit teaching methodology provides accessibility particularly benefiting struggling learners needing fluency foundations. Embedded supports like scaffolded rigor, tools assisting calculations, integrated vocabulary support and on-demand tutoring offer additional personalization while unit pre/post testing informs areas of growth. Real-time analytics also guide teachers targeting interventions. Early efficacy research indicates higher growth rates compared to sole textbook reliance, particularly helping move below grade level students toward proficiency (Imagine Learning, 2022). Blending core curriculum with this responsive and intensive direct instruction optimizes student advancement.
Ultimately, leveraging responsive digital tools in the middle grades math classroom allows teachers to elevate engagement, creativity, and personalized competency development through customized scaffolding adaptable to students’ evolving needs. When platforms provide tailored differentiation features combined with creative workspaces promoting student ownership over their learning process, classrooms become laboratories revealing untapped potential not visibility through narrow assessments alone. Technologies like GeoGebra, Desmos and ImagineMath sustain intrinsic motivation through choice while tracking progress informing supportive teacher interventions. Blending supplemental technologies with core curriculum strategically taps the strengths of both human-driven instruction and AI-guided supports. By serving the students in front of us with increasing precision through tech integration, a spectrum of mathematical excellence empowers new generations equipped with affective and cognitive tools for continued growth.
Resources:
Hohenwarter, J., & Lavicza, Z. (2007). Mathematics teacher development with ICT: Towards an International GeoGebra Institute. In Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics (Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 49-54). BSRLM.
Hsiao, I. Y. T., Lin, C. Y., Wang, P. Y., Ma, Z. H., Kuo, Y. C., & Lin, C. H. (2017). ALEKS math assessment web-based teaching program enhances math skills of ninth graders: A randomized control group study. Healthcare Informatics Research, 23(4), 290.
Imagine Math Research Summary (2022). https://www.imaginelearning.com/programs/imagine-math/research