Multiplication and Division

Picture you have just graduated college and want to teach 2nd grade. A few weeks, later you become the teacher's assistant after applying for two schools. A year later, the teacher of the 2nd grade classroom you helped in is moving and having a baby soon and she asks you to take her spot. You say yes. The first few weeks you see that multiple students are struggling with multiplication and dividing. As a new teacher, you do many lectures, discussions, and small groups with your students but that never helps the number of students that are struggling in her class. Then, you decide to integrate technology into your teaching. You use a Technology Pedalogical Content Knowledge called InnerMath. 

InnerMath is an educational program that correlates a beating heart with assessment score. There are different type of scores: the coherence score, achievement score, coherence over time score and other components such as the challenge level, coherence ratios, power spectrum display. The scoring algorithm measures the first 64 seconds of a beating heart and updates the score every 5 minutes. The goal for the student participating in this program is that the most and regular the heart beat is the higher the coherence score. Now, let's go back to the scenario. InnerMath helps students be accountable for their own learning by getting extra practice and set goals for themselves to accomplish. For example, a goal for a student can be learning multiplication tables up to 5 or feel confident about dividing. This program makes students feel more confident in their ability of their math skills by implementing strategies to teach students how math can be less stressful when you learn the best way for you how to learn math. 

The strategies that students would use for this program would be making a goal for themselves and make time to schedule times to do each session. For example, students could set a goal of 300 points everyday in one or multiple sessions. Another strategy that students can use to reach their goals is to complete one level and when the student feels confident they can keep moving up in the ranks. Seeing coherence score threshold between the three levels: Red is low, Blue is medium, and Green is high coherence can be very satisfying for a student. Also, the student will be successful and get to the hard level if they learn and complete things at their own pace. A third strategy would be to take the extra step and monitor your own heart beat, and question why it is at its signal peak or not. The student knows themselves best. Basically, the strategy here is to be aware of your own body. 

The student's progress is tracked by the power spectrum display and the total amount of coherence ratios at the end of an session. The power spectrum display measures the frequency of heart rhythm reform and shows the lowest frequency on the left side to the highest frequency on the right side of the page. The coherence ratios are for the summary at the end of the session. The summary is given through a percentage of how much time it took to get all of the three Challenge levels. Also, results of total coherence can be found in the achievement score which are awarded every 5 seconds during a session. The scoring algorithm updates a student's coherence score is updated every 5 seconds during an active session and adds all the scores giving the student the sum of all their coherence scores by the end of their session. 

The TPACK technology that I used, InnerMath for my scenario is a effective program for students who are struggling to understand how to do multiplication or dividing. InnerMath helps students be more focused and improve their thinking skills and teachers and students can see their progress by the amount of times the student's normal coherence score changes when students have more or less focus while completing a problem. The main thing that InnerMath helps students realize is that when you practice more greater levels of inner balance within the body, mainly a heartbeat, the student's scoring range is going to be higher, be able to complete more challenging levels, and set their own achievement goals that will challenge them to learn the material better. Also, students can learn the styles of learning that works for them in this program and the component of having different levels that get harder as they go serves as motivation for the students in the classroom to better understand multiplication and division.