1. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
IN THE MATH CLASSROOM
THROUGH BLOGGER
JANICE LEE’S E-LEARNING INITIATIVE

2. SUMMARY OF INITIATIVE
• Blogger as a tool to further collaborative and constructivist learning in
the classroom
• Forum for discussion
• Community Building
• Opportunity to refine and revise ideas for greater confidence and pride in work

3. NEED
• Cooperative learning is an essential component of classroom
structure
• Nonetheless, struggle with having full participation from all the
students
• Hesitant about sharing ideas with one another likely stems from a
weak sense of community and lack of confidence in one’s insight or
ideas.
• Students greatly dependent on teacher as a result, limiting
opportunities for full constructivist learning

4. AUDIENCE
• All 11th grade Geometry students at Benjamin Franklin High School
• Total of 55 students taking the course
• Opportunity to share mathematical conclusions with families to
engage them in their learning

5. OUTCOMES
• My two sections of Geometry will be able to:
• Formulate and share their ideas for different mathematical concepts following an
exploration
• Access group mate’s ideas
• Engage in an exchange that will allow students to ultimately reach some
conclusion or rule about the underlying math concept

6. PLATFORM – BLOGGER

7. PLATFORM - BLOGGER
• Blogger is an easy-to-use online resources where users can quickly
create blogs and generate feedback
• Useful in education because Blogger makes it easy for students to
share perspectives on education content, collaborative with others on
knowledge-formation, and get feedback from others.
• Additionally, students can connect to other social media channels and
keep an online journal that documents their learning

8. BROAD PLAN
• Initiative will take place during the fourth quarter (April 22 – May 30, 2014).
This short trial period will ensure that year-long implementation for the 2014
– 2015 will be prepared.
• During the initiative, participants will:
• Engage in a community building exercise where participants share personal
information and comment on their peer’s posts.
• Post a written response of individual initiative ideas or observations of some
mathematical pattern or data
• Post comments to teammate’s posts and provide feedback
• Synthesize the mathematical rule for the group
• Browse other group’s responses and ideas.

9. FACILITATOR EXPECTATIONS
• Post instructions and checklists for each assignment
• Monitor group and team discussions
• Provide feedback to groups and to individual posts
• Highlight exemplar posts and exchanges between students

10. PARTICIPANT EXPECTATIONS
• Participate in assignments by posting observations and conclusions
• Engage with teammates and provide commentary on their ideas
• Utilize math conversation stems and formal language
• I’m trying to find _____
• I’m confused because ___
• The way I solved this problem was ___
• Another strategy for solving this problem is ______
• This reminds me of _____
• The error in my strategy was ____
• Respect each student’s work

11. CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS
• By the end of the initiative, all Geometry students will…
• Have created a blogger account
• Provide individual information in an ‘About Me’ post and respond to peer’s
‘About Me’ posts.
• Document their observations of mathematical phenomena and respond to their
group mate’s posts
• Share the blogger with family members to invest them in their learning progress.

12. CONCLUSION
• E-learning initiative will improve collaboration in the classroom and
dependence on the students for knowledge formation as opposed to
on the teacher.
• Feedback and ideas can be provided through class’s discussion board
or directly to me at jnlee89@gmail.com