Coming up with an idea for a final project was a tough one. After giving it much thought, I decided to create an interactive homework assignment for my 4th and 5th grade special education math students. My goal here was for them not only to continue practicing the skills they learned in class, I also wanted to make math “fun”. Doing pencil and paper math problems gets boring really quick. Another reason why I decided to do this for my math students is to provide them with interactive manipulative to help solve the problems.
At the time of the project, my 4th graders were working on fractional parts of a set. I took a problem from one of their homework sheets and typed it out on a Flash actionscript stage. I created 3 text boxes where the students can input their answers. Unlimited cookies were placed on the stage for the students to use to help solve the answer. I included a trashcan in case a student dragged to many cookies onto the stage. Finally I inserted an email button. When the students completed their work, they will click on the button that is linked to my work account.

Problem(s):
It didn’t work when I needed it too. I showed it to my students to explain how it works. Everything worked during my presentation. However it did not work when the students worked on it at home. I went back into the program to make the font smaller in the input text boxes. Not knowing that I saved it incorrectly under the wrong actionscript name.

Parent Responses:
Even though it did not work the parents were extremely supportive of the creative ways I am presenting math to the students.

Next Steps:
Since fractions is a hard concept to grasp, I am working creating pattern block shapes to help my students continue to solve fraction problems.

My 5th grade students were working on identifying the mean, median, mode and range in a set of data. Just like my 4th grade math problem, I took a problem from one of their math homework sheets and put it on Flash. There were 5 pieces of data that the students were able to click and drag on to move around to put the numbers in order from least to greatest. The students inputted their answer in an input text box. One thing that made this assignment different from the 4th grade assignment is I created a check answer button. Students were able to check to make sure they got the answer correct. If they didn’t a “try again” message. An email button was also used in this project.

Problem(s):
Worked perfectly! No problems.

Parent Responses:
Overwhelmingly positive. I received an email from every 5th grade parent. They really appreciated the “new” way of doing math homework. One response that stood out to me was from a parent of a student who doesn’t like math at all. She told me that her son came home from school that day and said, “I want to do my math homework!” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Next Step:
Same as the 4th grade. I would like to create interactive manipulatives to help students solve moat problems.

http://mrmasonsclass.globalblogs.org/

http://collaborative-learning.wikispaces.com/

http://mrsanderson10.pbworks.com/w/page/33263525/FrontPage

I am also thinking of using some kind of augmentative reality for math. Not quite sure how that is going to work out yet.