eJournal 1: Project Description, 5 Whys exercise

1. The project that I intend to work on is a 8th grade math unit on multiple representations of functions.  The district provides teachers with a set of stock material to teach the unit and it is up to the teacher to decide the delivery process for the information for their students.  This difficult unit requires the students to shift between the different representations and utilize their knowledge and understanding of word problems, expression building, graphing and deciphering a pattern from a table of data to answer the questions.
2. The challenge for the student is that this unit is a culmination of what they have learned and requires application and analysis which is higher order thinking.   The challenge for the teacher is to find the balance of scaffolding vs. allowing them to struggle through the process of finding the different representations of a function.  The activities and work that the teacher provides need to help the students to learn to reason to find the answers.
3. From the students perspective, it doesn't seem they have a firm enough grasp of each of the 4 representations and how to manipulate the various forms to have the confidence to tackle the challenge.   From the teachers perspective, there might be some timing issues where they are not able to extend or reinforce the underlying skills necessary to solve the problems on their own.
4. The students grasp of graphing, word problems and deriving equations or rules from tables could be better if they were to utilize their time in class better and have a better attitude toward the problem solving.  Often homework is not completed or even assigned for those that need additional practice.    Teachers might be taking too much of the "teaching" burden rather than shifting the responsibility to the student and providing a lesson that is interesting and engaging so that the students want to learn.
5. Creating these types of lessons from scratch for each of the units in a typical year can be overwhelming to a teacher.  I imagine teachers take the material in euphoria, look for interesting ways to present it.  However they have to live with limitations of their own knowledge, understanding as well as time.   They might also lack the ability to adapt what other teachers might offer to their current environment.

The 5 whys technique is helpful in that it helps document a thought process and forces me to articulate what the problem is and dig deeper into why that is a problem.  It is impossible to do this in my head.   If I try to process this in my mind, I can get about 2 levels down, but my mind wanders and I loose track of the major points.   The key for me is to just start typing and work through the process.   The steps and justifications can be edited as I go forward and consider more accurate "whys".

In some ways my scope has broadened because this particular unit relies on the students basic skills with each of the representations. How they are taught from day 1 affects this particular lesson and that is a place that I certainly did not consider prior to this exercise.   It also helped me realize the value of student responsibility and engagement in the process so that I would consider that when looking at the amount of time allotted to teaching this and previous lessons.