Running Head: TEACHING METHODS: SELF-MONITOR & GRAPHIC ORGANIZER

Teaching Methods Paper # 2

Self-Monitoring and Graphic Organizers

Matt Drabenstott

12/03/2015

SEDP 601

Virginia Commonwealth University

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Rationale

For this second teaching methods paper, I wanted to select strategies that could be

implemented on a classwide scale, but would be easy to individualize. Self-monitoring and

graphic organizer strategies are both adaptable to various curricula and beneficial to students at

any stage in the learning process. The efficacy of both strategies will be examined through two

educational research articles.

Introduction

Self-monitoring is the first teaching strategy explored in this paper. Farrell and

McDougall (2008) study the academic impacts of using visual and tactile, vibrating cues as self-

monitoring strategies for six students with special needs in a high school basic math class. More

specifically, they were hopeful to find a correlation between using self-monitoring strategies and

an increase in math fluency. The second research article investigates the benefits of using

graphic organizers in nine middle school math classes. Zollman (2009) believes that graphic

organizers are linked with quicker improvements to math knowledge, strategic knowledge, and

students abilities to explain their answers to open-response math questions.

Self-Monitoring

Purpose

The purpose of the Self-Monitoring of Pace to Improve Math Fluency of High School

Students with Disabilities study was to determine whether the use of tactile and visual prompts to

self-monitor one’s pace would improve math fact fluency amongst high school students with

disabilities. Farrell and McDougall (2008) specifically wanted to see if students would both

respond to the cues to self-monitor, and see more fluent (quick and accurate) achievements with

daily math practice skills.

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Method

Six high school students with disabilities were issued a battery of baseline and

intervention basic math skills worksheets. A special education teacher and educational assistant

used visual cues and tactile vibration cues for daily 3-min math worksheet warmups for 30 days.

Self-monitored math fluency performance was documented and compared with baseline math

fluency performance data. These cues were the independent, or experimental, variables of the

study. They were designed to prompt students to gauge whether or not they were working at an

appropriate pace throughout the warmup. The dependent variables of the study were math

fluency, namely the number of correct digits, incorrect digits, and number of digits written

correctly throughout each student’s warmup worksheets. Although no warm-up worksheet

changed throughout the study, the difficulty of worksheets remained constant.

Participants

Participants of the study included six students who qualified for special education

services. All students were in the nine grade and attended the same basic math skills classroom.

Four of the students were male, while two of the students were female. All of the students were

Caucasian. Four of the six students had a specific learning disability in mathematics. The other

two students both had ADHD and other co-morbid disorders. Additionally, all students in the

study were fifteen years old. The other student was fourteen. The classroom teacher of the study

was a special education teacher with seven years of experience. In order to compare the students

of interest with peer-age math fluency performance, twenty-three Algebra-enrolled general

education 9th graders were tested as well.

Procedure
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The special educator first established a baseline of the six students’ math fluency

performance by issuing 3-minute math fact fluency warm-ups without tactile or visual prompts.

For every 3-minute warmup, students were encouraged to answer as many problem as possible,

while making as few errors as possible. (The teacher essentially highlighted both aspects of

math fluency as important to their performance.) Baseline measurements ranged between 8 and

29 warm-up sessions, depending on the students ability to appropriately pace themselves through

the warm up. After each warm-up, the teacher would tell the students the number correct and

incorrect digits found within their work and each student would graph their progress. The

special education teacher would highlight each student’s progress after each completed warm-up

and set goal of one additional correct math problem for students who had achieved their goal

three warm-ups in a row.

Once student performance plateaued, the special education teacher introduced the visual

and tactile cues to the student’s warm-up routine. For the visual cue, the teacher divided and

shaded the number problems that a student could most accurately answer with four different

colors. Each shaded section represented one quarter, or 45 seconds, of the 3-minute warm-up.

This served as a quick reference pacing guide for students to glance at and see whether they were

apportioning the correct amount of time for the allotted problems. To boost the efficiency of the

color scaling cues, each student also received a MotivAider, or a small vibrating pager, that they

attached to their belt. The MotivAider was set to vibrate every 45 seconds. Students were

trained to circle the problem they were on when the MotivAider vibrated, quickly look at the

shaded color of the problem they were on, and determine whether they were moving too slow, to

quickly, or just the right pace. After the MotivAider vibrated for the fourth time, the students

were to place their pencils down.

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Students’ warm-up results were continually graphed throughout the study. New target

scores and correct visual cue shading continued throughout the study. In order to see whether

self-monitoring strategies reduced math fluency gaps between the targeted group with disabilities

and general education students, 23 general education students were issued a pre and post warm-

up. This warm-up was similar to those that the participants completed, and these results were

compared with the baseline and final warm-ups taken by the six participant students.

One strength of the study is the number of warm-up data points taken. Each student

completed nearly 30 warm-ups by the time the study ended. Additionally, the researchers

completed two post-intervention warm-ups with the students, one after one week and another

two weeks after the completion of the study. Using multiple data points over the course of a

baseline and intervention time period allowed researchers to see a correlation between student

math fluency and the use visual and tactile self-monitoring aides. One possible weakness of the

study was only using six participants, who were very similar. All participants were within one

year of age to each other and most of the students were Caucasian with a Specific Learning

Disability. The conclusions made about the impact of self-monitoring strategies are true for this

very narrow demographic of students, but older or younger students with different, or similar,

disabilities may reveal different results.

Design

This study was a small group study. Researchers gathered a baseline of responses from

each student and then intervened with each student, showing them how to use visual and tactile

self-monitoring strategies. Researchers used “range-bound” changing criterion throughout the

study, which means that the special education teacher set a lower and a higher goal for students

to reach before each warm-up exercise. The lower goal was set at the most number of problems
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the student could answer with 95% accuracy. The upper limit goal was set as one problem

higher than the student was currently answering. Once a student had reached the upper goal

three times in a row, the teacher raised both the lower and upper goals for the student. Visual

and tactile strategies continued throughout the conclusion of the study once the special education

teacher started intervening with each student. The special educator submitted all of the students’

math fluency warm-ups to a second grader to establish interscorer agreement.

Results

Farrell and McDougall’s (2008) study concluded that the intervention of visual and the

vibrating tactile MotivAider boosted the math fluency for five of the six students studied. One

student stayed in the baseline phase of the study, because the student continued to improve math

fluency steadily over the course of the study. Comparing the math fluency improvements with

the 23 general education students, researchers found that the improvements noted in the five

participant students far exceeded the rate of math fluency improvement for the comparison

group. The pace and accuracy of the five students was found to be similar or better than same-

age general education peers by the end of the study. The general education comparison group

only averaged an increase of five correct digits over the course of the study period. The six

participants increased their number of correct digits in the warm-up activities by an average of

24 correct digits. In other words, the six participants increased their accuracy and pace

throughout the warm-up exercise by an average eight problems.

The results seem to favorably promote the use of tactile and visual cues to improve math

fluency. The fact that one of the studied participants never had an intervention stage where he

used the cues, and yet his math fluency still increased at a consistent rate raises questions about

the efficacy of the visual and tactile cues. A study of more students with ranging abilities and
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disabilities would shed light on the reliability of self-monitoring strategies to improve math

fluency.

Summary

Ultimately, researchers concluded that visual and tactile cues as self-monitoring tools are

strategies that should be implemented for students who have any kind of pacing issues. They

point out, based on the fact that the intervention was only implemented for five of the six

participants, that self-monitoring should be limited in use to students who are either working too

fast, too slow, or who are easily distracted. Although I do not teach a math class, I can see how

self-monitoring techniques can be applied to my classroom.

I have several students in my teaching caseload that are very slow workers or easily

distracted (I have few students who work too fast). Recently, my Life Skills students have been

filling out an interest inventory, which will translate to a career search in future lessons. I could

highlight the inventory into four sections and give students a visual time that will flash every

three minutes. This visual timer cue and color cue will serve as self-monitoring cues for students

to rate their progress in completing the assignment. This combination of cues is a technique that

could be used when completing any test, activity, project, or worksheet. Self-monitoring is a

very pliable and adaptable teaching technique that serves many purposes in transition.

Graphic Organizers

Purpose

The purpose of the article Students Use Graphic Organizers to Improve Mathematical

Problem-Solving Communications is explain the positive effects of using graphic organizers in

math classrooms. Zollman (2009) wanted see whether simple graphic organizers, or a more

visual approach, framing the five essential mathematical problem solving questions would
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improve middle school student’s math knowledge, strategic knowledge, and mathematical

explanation

Method

Nearly 200 middle school students took a pre and posttests assessing students’ ability to

solve open-response mathematic word problems. The students were comprised of nine math

classrooms. Although the instructional content and teaching materials varied in each classroom,

every classroom introduced the same “four corners and a diamond” graphic organizer after the

pretest to practice solving open-response mathematic problems. At the close of the open-

response mathematic word problem unit, teachers issued a posttest. The pre and posttests used

by the teachers were identical across the nine classrooms. Teachers collected and scored the pre

and posttests to determine the appropriate percentages of correct math knowledge, strategic

knowledge, and student ability to explain how he/she arrived at his/her answer.

Participants

One hundred and eighty-six middle school students participated in the open-response

mathematical study. The demographics of this group was not discussed in the study, with the

exception that all students belonged to a middle school classroom. Zollman does note that the

students ranged in mathematical ability. Nine middle school teachers participated as

implementers of the graphic organizer and collectors of data.

Procedure

At the beginning of the open-response mathematical problem unit, each of the nine

middle school teachers issued an open-response word problem as a pretest to assess student’s

ability to explain their answer, assess their math knowledge, as well as their strategic knowledge.
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Each teacher than explained how to utilize the “four squares and a diamond” graphic organizer.

Teachers explained how the five essential questions/steps to solve open-response math problems

were embedded into the design of the graphic organizer. These steps were: 1) State the problem;

2) List the given information: 3) Explain methods for solving the problem; 4) Identify

mathematical work procedures; and 5) Specify the final answer (Zollman, 2009).

Students were encouraged to not follow the five questions/steps in their prescribed order,

but rather fill in each portion of the graphic organizer as it came to them as they solved the

problem. The graphic organizers served as a sort of visual mind maps for the students as they

solved the word problems. Teachers issued several open-response word problems to the student

to solve using the graphic organizer over the course of the open-response unit.

At the conclusion of the unit, students were issued the exact same word problem and

asked to solve the problem using the four squares and a diamond method. Each of the teachers

collected the pre and posttest scores to compare. The nine teachers’ pre and posttest scores were

compiled at the conclusion of the study.

One strength of the study was the use of so many students throughout the study. Seeing

such a stark increase in math, strategic knowledge, and explanation with so many participants

builds a strong case for Zollman’s positive outlook of graphic organizers. One weakness of the

study is not examining the specific results of using graphic organizers for particular

demographics, such as with students who have dyscalculia or students who are older or younger.

Another potential weakness is only using one graphic organizer for the study. Zollman could

have chosen to test the effect of multiple graphic organizers in different classrooms. He then

could have compared the pre and posttest results using alternative graphic organizers to

determine the best one.

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Design

This research study used nine middle school math classrooms, averaging in ~20 students

each. The study relied on a pretest, or baseline, before any implementation of graphic organizers

and a posttest after the completion of the open-response math unit. Conclusions about the effects

of the graphic organizer and improvements in each student’s math knowledge, strategic

knowledge, and ability to explain their answers was derived by comparing student pretest and

posttest scores. Teachers graded the pre and posttest quizzes by the students’ answer and work

shown.

Results

The 186-student sample scored an average of 27% on the pretest. Interestingly enough,

the posttest average was 43% higher than the pretest average. Of the three mathematical

measures (math knowledge, strategic knowledge, and explanation), math knowledge saw the

greatest improvement amongst the participants. The math knowledge average jumped over 70%

over the course of the unit. Zollman attributed this success with the implementation of the four

squares and a diamond graphic organizer. He explained that the graphic organizer provided an

“efficient…method for writing down their thinking in a logical argument” (Zollman, 2009).

Moreover, he suggests that the graphic organizer is a huge aide to teachers, as it allows teachers

to pinpoint exactly where the student was derailed in solving the open-response math problem

because the graphic organizer causes each student to articulate each step of the solution process

clearly.

Zollman’s results seem to build a really good case for using graphic organizers. One

aspect of his study that is lacking is a control group. Unlike Farrell and McDougall’s (2008)

study, Zollman did not use a control group or sample to compare his pre/posttest findings with.
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His study would have been strengthened by comparing posttest scores of students using the

graphic organizer with posttest scores of students who never used graphic organizers, but were

taught using traditional instruction and activities. It may be that the control students performed

equally well as the experimental group, thus diluting Zollman’s findings. Notwithstanding, all

nine teachers attributed the brunt of the student’s boost in test scores with the practice of the

graphic organizer.

Summary

Zollman’s implementation of graphic organizers seems to have a huge benefit for

students for just one unit in the curriculum map. Future research for graphic organizers in other

units of math would be a worthwhile pursuit. Although the research was conducted in a middle

school math classroom, it would be interesting to see whether high school math classrooms

would benefit from the graphic organizers such as the four squares and a diamond format.

I do not teach a math class, I can see how using the four squares and a diamond graphic

organizer might fit into a high school transition class. Currently, my Life Skills Class is

searching out possible career options after graduating high school. I could use the four squares

to have to students write down key skills, job duties, educational requirements, and salary

expectations. I could have students write down their final thoughts on the career choice in

diamond. This would replace a worksheet-based method that does not allow for students to

creatively jot their thoughts down in a visual way. Graphic organizers could be adapted to many

exercises and activities in transition.

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References

Farrell, A. & McDougall, D. (2008). Self-monitoring of pace to improve math fluency of high

school students with disabilities. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 1 (2), 26-35.

Zollman, A. (2009). Students use graphic organizers to improve mathematical problem-solving

communications. Middle School Journal, 41 (2), p. 4-12.