My fieldwork has been at Upper Bound Math and Science (UBMS), which is a program for students who aspire to pursue college educations in math or science fields. Students work solely on Khan Academy, a website that provides endless math problems and utilizes concept from gamification (Kopcha, Ding, Neumann, Choi 2016) such as multiple routes and achievement (in the form of accumulating points). I have never heard a student vocalize excitement towards math worksheets, but multiple students have spoken excitedly about the prospect of working through a ‘mastery challenge’ on Khan Academy. Students could complete surveys that compare Khan Academy to worksheets, and I would predict that students would rank Khan Academy ahead of worksheets in terms of student interest. Some members of the cohort identified the possibility of students disconnecting from work that draws from the gamified approach, but I have not observed any student refuse to work on Khan Academy (their progress is directly connected to their grade).
A lot of members of our cohort mentioned their affinity towards the concept of multiple routes when we discussed the gamification article, and I strongly believe that multiple routes help students in numerous ways. They get to choose which section of problems they work on first, second, third, etc. I believe this provides them with a sense of autonomy, helps them strategize, and helps bolster their confidence outside of the math realm. They get to choose topics they work on and then get to deal with consequences that follow from their choices. I believe this to be a healthy form of growth, both in terms of maturity and planning/strategizing. Unfortunately, not everything in the program is perfect. A recent podcast that we were asked to listen to for School, Society, and Self startlingly illustrated the importance of integration in schooling, yet our student body at UBMS is composed entirely of African-Americans and Hispanics. The podcast proposed that integration, which would cause minorities to go to the same school as Whites, would lead to better outcomes for minorities because schools that Whites attend typically get more funding. While the student population is composed entirely of non-Whites, 80% of the instructors are of Caucasian or Asian heritage. We have been presented with a wealth of information in our program that emphasizes the lesser quality of schools that urban students (mostly minorities) are forced to attend, and I have seen students present multiple academic red flags at UBMS. For example, one student mentioned that she never learned to multiply numbers. Other students do not attempt to perform computations mentally that are of middle-school difficulty. My students seem chained to the calculator even when it comes to simple computations. The female student who mentioned that she never learned to multiply is still counting on her hands despite being at the tail end of her high school career. She has been one of my favorite students to help. She has made comments to me such as ‘I wish you were my math teacher’, ‘I’ve never had fun learning until now’, and ‘you’re my partner’. I believe the education system failed this young woman (as opposed to blaming her or her family for ‘not valuing education’). I have not seen another student at UBMS put forth more effort to learn than this young lady, and I look forward to working with her. It’s tragic that her desire to learn has not been realized by the education system. This young lady shared a story with me about how her algebra class involved no work. They were taught by a permanent substitute, never learned algebra, and algebra class became a place where students just ‘hung out’. This is reminiscent of the book Our Schools Suck, which made note of the education system leeching the will to learn out of students. Another unfortunate happening was a boy who fell asleep in class. Instead of berating the student, the teacher kindly let him leave the room to walk in the hallway so that he could better engage with his work. He returned to class and immediately fell back asleep. Some of our readings have suggested that students who come from an urban setting may not get sufficient sleep at home for a variety of reasons, so this explanation came to mind as I saw this student fall back asleep. It was as if he had not slept much or at all the night before. He had never behaved that way before or after that day. I spoke with a member of my cohort who acknowledged that this same student slept through another class that same day. It was useful to hear this other perspective from another instructor because it lent further evidence to my suspicion that this student had not gotten a quality night’s sleep the night before. On a completely different topic, I have observed that there are more male than female students in all three classes that I assist. Our readings in class on gender bias have pointed out that more males are achieving in the fields of math and science than females, so it is unfortunate to sense this trend in my own classes. More males than females in math classes means that the male students will have a higher chance of achieving in the field of math, and this statement does not even take into the account the disproportionate amount of attention that males attract than female students. I decided to keep track of how many male and female students I help on a given day, because our readings made note of the trend of males receiving more instructor attention than females in classes. I was horrified to see that my ratio was 4:1 males helped to females helped. Upon seeing this, I began to consciously put effort towards engaging with female students instead of male students. My own ratio of 4:1 disturbed me because I am a strong believer that women should be treated fairly and given the same opportunities that are afforded to men. I want there to be more women achieving the fields of math and science, so my conscious decision to help more female students was a no-brainer for me. My ratio improved noticeably after I began to put forth effort towards helping female students, but this will have to be an issue that I monitor moving forward. Having more males than females in the class may suggest that it is likely that I will help more males than female students over the course of a class, but a 4:1 ratio was extreme and was not caused by there being more male than female students in the classes. I believe it reflected my own level of comfort with helping female students. It may be the case that other instructors primarily helped female students while I primarily helped male students, but this is simply an optimistic possibility that may not even be true. While I hope that other instructors reached out to the female students I was passing over, I cannot be sure that this happened. It must be up to me to make sure that I give female students as much or more of my attention than I give to male students. As a final thought, working at UBMS has been a wonderful experience so far. They are good kids. They put forth consistent effort to progress on Khan Academy and come ready to work and learn. I look forward to continuing to help them achieve and prepare them for their imminent college experiences.
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