Subject Area
Mathematics
Description
Reflecting on my first year of teaching, the number one hindrance to my students’ progress in mathematics seemed to be that my students strongly disliked the subject. Therefore in my second year of teaching at a diverse Catholic school in New England, I completed an action research project that implemented project-based learning (PBL) based on Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory into my mathematics classroom. I wanted to to see if the experience would first, impact student attitudes to make students like math more, and second, if PBL would allow students to see mathematics as applicable to the real world. Therefore, this action research project used a mixed-method design to examine student (N=20) attitudes towards mathematics. Students completed the research-tested Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) as well as an open-ended reflective survey both before and after the PBL experience to assess the impact of the intervention. Results indicated that while PBL did not improve most student attitudes towards mathematics—at least in terms of students liking math more—it did cause almost every student to see math as useful in the real world.
Publisher
Providence College
Date
Spring 2013
Type
Article
Format
Text
Language
English
