We Need to Keep Learning

Every spring semester I get to write the last blog post for Math 371, Technology for STEM Educators. I always title it, "What I Learned This Semester," but this year I want to be more specific about why educators need to keep learning. 

If we don't continue to learn, how can we ask our students to learn? As a teacher educator, I have always felt that modeling what I want our future teachers to do is the most important aspect of my job. How can we say one thing and do another? So I try to model good teaching, fair assessment practices, and being a lifelong learner. 

Last semester I did an action research project with collaborators from Georgia Southern University and the University of New Hampshire. We used a two-column proof software in our Geometry for Teachers courses at our respective institutions. We collected data through student surveys and the software. When it came to analyzing the survey data, I initially used a Chi-square Test of Independence on the pre-and post-responses to our Likert-scale questions. Our results weren't great, but we did have some low p-values. As I began to read more about statistics, I decided that a different test should be used because my sample sizes were too small for the Chi-square test to be accurate. So I kept searching for an appropriate statistical test and kept asking questions of my awesome colleague, Dr. Gary Hatfield. He even took my data to his class on nonparametric statistics and had them look at it to see if they could conclude anything from the data.

As I kept reading more about statistics, I found several tests that wouldn't work because they only worked for categorical variables that had 2 categories. My Likert scale had 4 categories, with 29 samples in the pre-survey and 20 in the post-survey. I finally converted the data from categorical to numerical, and then as I was reading some forum, someone mentioned a partially overlapping test. Then I Googled a partially overlapping sample and found a dissertation from Ben Derrick from 2020, where he created a new statistical test that seemed to fit exactly what I needed. He even created R code and I was able to perform the new test. We then got more results with low p-values. In addition, I did a paired t-test and Wilcoxon rank-sum test on the paired data, but these only resulted in low p-values for questions that already had low p-values from the new test.

This semester I went far outside my comfort zone and learned a new statistical test out of necessity for my research. I had to learn how to do some coding in R. And the best part of this experience was that one of my statistics colleagues asked me to send him the information on this partially overlapping samples test. He just got some data that he plans to use it on. My learning led to something that helped a Statistics colleague! Usually, the Math faculty are asking the Stats faculty for help, not the other way around.

How does this experience translate to help my future teachers? Well, I have shared this experience with them as they are required to do action research projects in their second semester of student teaching. They were able to see my first-hand account of my action research project--that the data you get doesn't always give the results you want, that you need to figure out how to analyze the data, and that a portion of the data doesn't give the whole picture.

A Semester Filled With Learning

By Allison Johnson

This semester has been full of learning. I have learned about a lot of different technology tools to potentially use in my future classroom. I have learned about a lot of different iPad apps to use. I have decided that I like having an iPad and being able to take notes on it so much that I am highly considering getting one. I also learned how to do things on a SMARTboard and Promethean board, which I was very excited about. Elementary-aged Allison would be so happy, I remember always wondering about how you work a smart board and I loved playing on it when I could.

This week we had a Desmos art project due. Desmos is an online graphing calculator. We had to create an image of some sort in Desmos. This activity was challenging, you had to graph a line and then just keep changing the numbers in the equation until it looked right. I was able to find some resources online to help, which was very nice. After I finished my activity, I sent a video of it to my parents. My mom said something along the lines of “that looks great, I would have no idea how to do that.” My dad is an engineer, so I often tell him about stuff we are doing in the classroom. I explained to him what Desmos was and what the assignment was, and he said, “wow calculators have come a long way.” I never even realized that neither of my parents have ever used anything like Desmos because I am so used to it, and I have been using it in a classroom since high school. 

Last week we got a TI-Nspire calculator. Our assignment with this is to learn more about how the calculator works and then teach our classmates how to do some math activities on it. For those of you who do not know about this calculator, it is a very advanced calculator. You can create shapes, make word documents, calculate, do derivatives, and much more that I have not figured out. I had no idea this calculator even existed and honestly, I do not know when I would ever use it. I do not foresee myself using this calculator daily because of how complex it is and how hard it is to figure out how to work it. This was another instance where my parents were flabbergasted by how far technology has come. They had no idea they made calculators this advanced and neither did I. 

Right now, in Math 371 we are working on a group teaching project. Each group got assigned a different learning management system. My group was assigned to Canvas. As of right now, I am not a big fan of Canvas. It took me almost an hour to figure out the settings and figure out what settings I needed to change for people to get into the class without the school having a license with Canvas. My classmates are also having issues logging into their accounts after they make one. I am having trouble getting things to show up where I want them. The feature to make quizzes was nice though. They have a lot of options for the types of questions you can ask and the types of answers such as true/false, multiple-choice, fill in the blank, essay, etc. 

Should Accounting be Considered a STEM Field in K-12?

By Hunter Hanson

Accounting is becoming more and more technology-savvy with each day that passes by. Right now, in the United States, legislation has introduced accounting to be considered part of the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field instead of being in the business field in K-12 Education. Accountants are responsible for recording the financial transactions of a business or organization. The accounting process includes summarizing, analyzing, and reporting financial statements. All businesses need an accounting professional to do their finances, which makes them in high demand in almost every economy today. STEM provides some of the fastest-growing jobs related to cloud computing, engineering, mathematics, and sciences.

The legislation would allow STEM K-12 grant funding to be used to help with accounting awareness and education. The activities would promote the development, implementation, and strengthening of programs to teach accounting. The goal of the bill is to help increase access to high-quality accounting courses for students in high school who would like to go into the accounting field. If passed accounting still wouldn’t be considered a STEM field at the post-secondary level, but if passed would strongly help it to become one.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA) has wanted this bill to be passed for some time now because their argument is that there is a clear and logical overlap between accounting and technology. As the profession has become bigger than ever, CPAs have become some of the biggest leaders in the technology field with many having to manage and analyze big data and help with data security every day working alongside information technology (IT) professionals. Business professionals and accounting firms are looking for more tech-savvy CPAs and accountants, which increases the need for more technology classes in the field. Overall, accounting is a great profession, with many opportunities in the field, and time will tell if accounting will be considered a STEM field. 

Online Homework

By Melissa Christlieb

Have you ever been assigned a homework assignment online? Or have you ever assigned your students online homework? Online homework is being implemented more and more in education each day. So, what are some pros and cons of online homework?

Let’s start with some pros. A major pro of online homework is the flexibility that it allows. Students have complicated schedules and are involved in more things than just your class. Having homework online allows students to learn when the time suits them and the opportunity to work in a different environment than a classroom. There are so many resources online now to help with homework and understanding. Online homework can be beneficial to students who are shy or do not like to talk in the classroom. Having discussions posts online gives those students a way to communicate what they are learning in a way that is comfortable for them. As a student, one aspect of online homework is that immediate feedback is provided in most cases.

Next, let’s talk about some cons with online homework. When assigning online homework, you normally have a bank of questions to pick from. This can cause teachers to assign too many problems because it is easy to assign them to students. Too much homework is a huge problem. With having homework online, especially with math, the websites want the answers in a certain way. This can be discouraging for the students if they doing to problem correctly, but the online website wants an answer in a different form. This recently happened in one of my tutoring sessions. After the third problem that was incorrect because of a formatting issue, the students felt very defeated and like they were doing everything wrong. However, if they were to turn in their answer on paper to the teacher it would be correct.

Overall, there are many pros and cons to online homework. Online homework can make tasks much simpler and more accessible to do anywhere students want to learn. On the other hand, online homework might be discouraging to students if simple formatting mistakes occur and continue to get problems wrong. So, would you use online homework in your classroom?