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**Research Articles About Math, and Writing**
Writing in Mathematics: An Alternative Form of Communication for Academically Low-Achieving Students Authors: Juliet A. Baxter, John Woodward, Deborah Olson The main idea of Writing in Mathematics: An Alternative Form of Communication for Academically Low-Achieving Students was to study the way low-achieving students communicate with their peers and their teacher. The authors Juliet A. Baxter, John Woodward, and Deborah Olson studied this idea by having interviews with the math teacher, Ms. Carter, and having all of the students in Ms. Carter’s class, including the low-achieving students write journals. At first the journals were opinion based, almost personal, then the journals because less personal and more like mathematical questions that needed to be solved along with an explanation on how the students solved the question. The group of students which I have already stated that were studied were low-achieving students. The results of this study showed that the two girls that were studied were trying to make a better connection with their teacher by talking to their teacher through their journals, which showed that they wanted to improve and pass the class. The two boys on the other hand did not speak directly to their teacher through their journals; they were impersonal, talking in first person. The one boy would state a lot that he did not know the answer instead of trying to figure out the answer.  I thought the use of journals to see where students were with their math studies was very creative and useful even though it gave the teacher a little extra work. Most of the students did the journals without a fuss except for one low-achieving student. I do not understand why the teacher, Ms. Carter allowed Danny the one low-achieving student to always write in his journal and not give any explanation. Why didn’t Ms. Carter ask Danny to stay after class and help him with his journals? Also how did Ms. Carter not realize that Danny was not doing the work in her math class and if he was struggling he was not doing the math he was assigned by his resource teacher? I would ask the authors to look more into Danny’s situation with the math class to see why he seems to be so rebellious with his math work.  As I stated above I see the journals as a creative idea. I feel like this would be very useful if I were to use it. Not only would I be able to help students with their writing skills I would also be able to help them with word problems. I know for me going through school word problems were always a pain to solve and I didn’t like doing them, I feel like this would be a good way to get students comfortable with writing and word problems. I would be sure to look at all of the journals from each student and if they had questions I would write back to them asking them to stay after class to get help or explain to them that I will explain to the whole class how to work through the very same issue they are having. Connecting Mathematics and Writing Workshop: It’s Kinda Like Ice Skating Author: Susan Carter The main ideas of this article were that students use writing to understand and work with math. The question the teacher had a first for was how she was going to incorporate writing with math. The teacher experimented with her first and second grade students illustrating real-life stories in math. The teacher found for this study that the students not only enjoyed the writing with math, but also had a better memorization of past lessons. The teacher mentioned with mathematics if students draw pictures they are more likely to understand and remember mathematic formulas or ideas. Is there a way that this teacher could use other writing methods besides the illustrating method with students to help them to better understand math and still have the students enjoy what they are doing? Also, could the teacher give more examples of what the students did during her writing/mathematics workshop, so the audience has more of an idea of what would work well with their students? I agree that illustration is very helpful for students with learning math. I would apply this slightly different because I would be teaching any grade from fifth through twelfth. I would still use the illustration idea, but I would apply it to word problems. Word problems can be difficult for student to understand. If they use the numbers in the word problems and draw out the numbers then the students may be able to solve word problems without having too much of a struggle.

Research Articles About Math, and Technology

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