My Harvard Math for Teaching Thesis: Complete! And ready to share… March 20, 2011

After many many years of jumping through many many hoops, I am finally graduating with my MA in Mathematics for Teaching in May.  My thesis, Negative Number Misconceptions in High School: An Intervention Using the ZeroSum Ruler is right now at the printers being printed and bound.  I don’t know about you, but that instantaneous feeling of relief after taking a final exam or passing in a final paper stopped hitting me sometime in college.  So now, I’m just feeling a bit burnt out.  OK, completely burnt out.  But I’m sure it will hit me soon since it kind of needs to; I need to now get in a post-Bach program to get my Initial teaching license.  I like to do things backwards.

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So here it is for download!  For all to read!  Or maybe to just glance.  In my study, the ZeroSum ruler proved effective in reducing eleventh grade error on integer addition and subtraction problems (especially with negative integers).  If I wasn’t so burnt out, I’d want to test it with younger kids.  Imagine how our world would be if my eleventh graders actually mastered integers when they learned them in, and only in, 7th grade.  But that’s in my thesis.]

 

When does -22 + 5 = -27? December 6, 2010

My graduate thesis is a study of the long-term effects the ZeroSum ruler has on eleventh grade student understanding of negative integers.  By eleventh grade, students should easily be able to answer “-22 + 5 =”, but on a diagnostic test given to 57 students, 40.35% of the students answered this problem incorrectly.  Why does this matter?  It matters because it shows that students did not learn the relationship between negative and positive numbers in elementary or middle school.  By the time they get to me in eleventh grade and need to be fluent in equation manipulation, answering “-22 + 5 = -27″ is a real problem. 

 

My thesis was set up the following way:

1: Diagnostic test: eight simple sums and differences of integers  (ie: ’22 + 5=”) without a ZeroSum ruler or calculator

2: Introduction to the ZeroSum ruler with examples

3: Three activities, spaced out over 2 weeks,  using the ZeroSum ruler

4: A post test within days of the last activity (no ZeroSum ruler or calculator)

5: A delayed retention test one month after the last activity (no ZeroSum ruler or calculator)

 

Because the attendance rates of students in Boston Public Schools is not the best, especially by the 11th and 12th grades,  a subgroup of 31 students was identified who took the diagnostic test, participated in at least 2 of the 3 activities with the ZeroSum ruler, took the post test, and took the delayed retention test.  The data shows a 62% decrease in student error from the diagnostic test to the delayed retention test because of the ZeroSum Ruler!  These results indicate that the ZeroSum ruler works to improve student comprehension long-term even without the ruler.

 

Pretty exciting stuff.

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