Edit 6600: Final Update and Reflection

Project Website


Final Update

1) Issue

Every year there are greater numbers of students taking advanced placement (AP) classes as admission to colleges is getting more and more competitive. However, there is little diversity within these classes. On a national level, the percentage of African American students in AP classes is 6.9%, which is almost half the percentage of African American students in the total population (13.7). Specifically for AP Calculus, there is even more of a disparity. Nationally, calculus is predominantly White (64%), followed by Asian (16.1%), Hispanic (7.8%), and African American (4.3%). When compared to the actual population for the Hispanic (14%) and African American (13.7%) subgroups, these numbers indicate a vast problem within the AP Calculus community. At Brookwood High School there are also very few African Americans and Hispanics in AP Calculus classes. The achievement within these two minority groups is also the lowest among the AP population. On a grading scale of 1-5, where 3-5 will give students college course credit for the course, the average score for each group are: African American-1.94, Hispanics- 2.17, White-3.09, and Asian-3.17. Not only are African American and Hispanic students not enrolled in as many AP Calculus classes as White and Asian students, but they are also scoring significantly lower on the AP exams. (AP Report to the Nation, 2007) (Accountability Report-Brookwood High School, 2006)


There are many different factors that have been examined and attributed to cause this inequity in the diversity of the AP Calculus population. One widely expressed factor is that within minority groups there is pressure from peers to stay away from difficult classes/remain average (Freyer, 2006). Other factors include inaccurate academic tracking in 8th grade and lack of mathematical preparation in early years. (Thernstrom, 2003) There are many other factors that can affect this problem and they differ depending on the school and community. However, there is a consensus that this is a large problem facing our nation today.

2) Objective

The purpose of this project will be threefold:
1. Inform all students of the need/benefits to the AP Calculus course.
2. Encourage/motivate a more diverse population of students to take calculus.
3. Close the gap of inequity in AP Calculus by creating specific opportunity for lower achieving minorities to find success.


3) Description
The Lesson
I will create an instructional unit to guide students through choosing their senior math class. The process of the lesson plan will be as follows:
Day 1
Student Research:
The first part of the unit will be a research activity for the students.

1. Students will list 5 possible colleges of their choice
2. Students will list 3 possible majors/fields of study
3. Students will find out the math requirements for 3 majors at 3 different
colleges/universities.
Even if the students feel they know what college they are going to, they need an alternative plan, and likewise with the college major.

This will give the students the opportunity to discover for themselves what background they will need for a number of different college and major situations.
Students will be required to email the teacher with their findings, so he can use it for the presentation the following day.
This can be found at http://htmartin.myweb.uga.edu/research.htm.

Day 2
The day will begin with a discussion of the different majors and college choices, along with the math requirements for each. The instructor will note that if a student could ever possibly take Calculus, then they should first take it in high school.

Instructor Presentation:
The instructor has the option to present the PowerPoint presentation to the students, or view the online content found at http://htmartin.myweb.uga.edu/. The main ideas will be
1. Course Description
2. Course Requirements
3. Benefits of Course
4. AP Credit? –“Who needs it, who has received it in the past(score reports)”
5. FAQ

Student Activity:

Students will view the testimonial section of website containing student responses to taking Calculus. They will read the testimonials, and view the interviews provided by former and current students, along with professionals who have had experience with higher mathematics.
Found at: http://htmartin.myweb.uga.edu/testimonials.htm.

Student Reflection:
Students will write a three part report on this activity:
Part 1. Students will indicate their initial reactions to AP calculus, and discuss their feelings, attitude, and preliminary thoughts on taking the course.
Part 2. Student will reflect on their thoughts after viewing the Testimonial/interviews. They will consider how this has changed (if any) their initial thoughts about the course.
Part 3 Students will discuss the following: What is their final position on AP calculus? Has this activity affected their decision in any way? What way could this be improved?

4) Culture

There is a problem with the diversity among the AP community at Brookwood High School. I will emphasize the need for students from all cultures to take these classes. This project directly focuses on increasing the diversity of the individuals taking Advanced Placement courses. The project has primarily three main components that target the multicultural goals for the project.
1. Testimonials. This section of the project is designed to inspire students from diverse backgrounds to challenge themselves by taking AP Calculus. The testimonials will consist of quotes and interviews from former students, college graduates, and professionals who have been challenged in the past by higher mathematics and have benefited from taking these courses. The subjects will be a diverse group in attempt to provide every student with someone to relate to.This will be an attempt to show every student that others from the same background, race, or status have succeeded and benefited from AP Calculus

2. Prep Course. Because so many multicultural students are placed in lower track courses before they reach 11th grade, these students oftentimes lack the prior knowledge to be successful in AP Calculus. In effort to curb this inequity, I will provide a 3 day course during the summer for students from lower tracks (College Prep) to prepare them for the upcoming AP Calculus course. The focus of this preparation course will be covering concepts that were missed in the college prep classes as well as aiding through the completion of the AP Calculus summer assignment.

3. Study Groups. This section of the project is designed to close the gap of achievement for students from multicultural backgrounds in the area of AP Calculus. By providing these diverse students with an opportunity to obtain extra help in a setting in which they will be the majority, they will hopefully be more successful in the course. This has proven to be very effective in the Shaker Heights school district. After three years of implementing a similar strategy, the enrollment of African American students in AP classes increased by 50%. (Winerip, 2005)

5) Timeline

This lesson is designed to be implemented to 11th grade students prior to registering for classes for their senior year. The actual implementation will take place in January 2008 in Brookwood High School Precalculus classes. However, I was able to allow some students to view the project this summer and recieve feedback on the project.

Implementation
I was able to allow 5 upcoming seniors at Brookwood High School to view the project and provide me with feedback from the lesson. There were 3 males and 2 females in this small group. The demographics of the group were 3 White, and 2 African American (1 male & female). All of these students were in Precalculus this past year at Brookwood, and four out of the five are enrolled in Calculus for this next year.

Feedback
Although these students have already signed up for classes for the upcoming year, they were the closest to the target group of the project. They were able to provide me with excellent feedback. In general, they really enjoyed the explanation of the course and all of the information concerning AP courses. They also indicated that the initial assignment would be very helpful, as they are now beginning to really consider college options, and looking into the math requirements of different majors would have been a great activity. They did indicate that it would be helpful to have more colleges represented in the exam credit and math requirement sections.

As far as the multicultural elements, there was also great feedback. The students liked the opportunity to have study groups, and felt that if the students were motivated enough to take the high-level course, then they would probably be likely to participate in the multicultural groups. They also gave positive feedback concerning the prep course, and suggested offering the prep course for all students. The testimonials was probably the most exciting aspect of the lesson to these students, as they indicated it gave them a true sense of what to expect and how it had benefited former students. However, they also suggested that I could provide more extensive interviews with students as well as more of a variety of participants in the testimonials.

Revisions
There were three main suggestions that were provided from the implementation of the lesson with this group of students. The following revisions were made:
1. Provide math requirements and exam credit information for additional colleges
Updating these sections will be an ongoing process as new data will be given to me each time students complete the research activity. As students complete the research activity the new information will be added to the presentation/website prior to the implementation of the lesson.

2. Open up the preparation course to all students.
Although this is a possibility, I do think that this may take away from the benefit towards those students who truly need the additional preparation. This course is not designed to replace the summer assignment, but simply to provide students without the proper background a chance to succeed in AP Calculus. So, there will be no change in the specifics of this prep course.

3. Provide additional interviews and testimonials
This will also be an ongoing component of the lesson. As I find individuals who I can provide my students with helpful insight I will add them to the course. Also, I have been given the opportunity to interview some UGA football players, but due to the NCAA regulations, the interviews will have to wait until August to be completed. I intend for this part of the project to become an extensive library of feedback that will be available to students and will incorporate feedback from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and fields.

Final Reflection
Final Reflection

When first beginning this project, I intended to create a presentation to encourage/motivate all students to take Calculus, with an emphasis on targeting low enrolled cultural groups. However, through the process of completing the project I realized first that the problem was greater than just there were low numbers of African American and Hispanic students taking Calculus, for these students were also performing at a much lower level than other groups of students. Due to this factor, I decided I needed to be more strategic with this project at not only targeting low enrolled groups, but also to provide intervention for the low performing. Through the discussions, readings, and suggestions from the 6600 class, I came up with the prep course, testimonials, and study groups sections of the project. These three components are the most influential parts of the project and all three together are addressing the equality issues of enrollment and performance in AP Calculus.
To fully address this issue, it would take a joint effort from all levels of education along with families and communities. However, this project deals with the issue at hand, and combats the factors that can be addressed at the current state. I feel that this project has evolved into an effective means of reaching all three project goals. Once the project is implemented on the actual target group this next school year, more accurate assessments to the actual impact and effectiveness of the project will be made
This project will be an ongoing process as I intend to request feedback from students following the implementation and consider how it may affect demographics in AP Calculus in the upcoming years. . I would like to have provided a greater number of interviews which I feel will greatly increase the value of this assignment, and intend to in the coming months. I will continue to add to the testimonial section of the lesson as I find individuals who could provide insight and motivation to the students. I have already created a website in which all math teachers will be able to provide the lesson for their students, and I am looking into providing an even more created instructional tool such as a podcast or Impatica presentation that could allow the instruction to be more self-sufficient. This would allow students from other schools to participate and benefit from the lessons.
Through this project, and the research that I performed I truly became more aware of the vast inequality among the AP community nationally and locally at Brookwood High School. This is a vast problem with many different factors. I feel that I will begin to incorporate many features of the class into my own teaching as now I am aware of a problem that is specific to my subject area. Since I teach at a predominantly white dominated school, I feel that I have become unaware of diversity and multicultural problems within the academic community and society. This class and working on this project has brought to my attention the importance of addressing cultural issues and I intend for it to become more of a focus in my teaching in the future.
So, like so many other situations that occur in academia that is intended to educate the students, this project has also served to change us as teachers. If nothing else beneficial comes from this project I feel that the change that has been brought about in my own life through this has made it worth it. However, I do expect to see great gains in the Brookwood AP community as a result of this project and look forward to updating, and revising this project in the future.


References:

Accountablitly Report-Brookwood High School (2005-2006)

AP Report to the Nation 2007

Fryer, R. G. (2006). Acting white.

Thernstrom A. & Thernstrom S. (2003). No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. Simon & Schuster

Winerip, M. (2005). How one suburb's black students gain. New York Times.pdf

New Update:
To produce a more efficient and useable project I have created a website that other teachers can use as they present the information to all students at Brookwood High School. I realized that if the project remained in its current state, that I would be required to perform the instruction. However, through the website the instruction is now self-sufficient. I will continue to revise the website as well as update the blog. The url for the websit is http://htmartin.myweb.uga.edu/.