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Friday, October 9, 2009

Discuss a problem a teacher could experience if he or she used instructional software with students without evaluation.


Using bibliotherapy to teach problem solving.

Students with high-incidence disabilities (e.g., specific learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, mild mental retardation) can benefit from using bibliotherapy by learning how to become proactive problem solvers. Often students with high-incidence disabilities are characterized as inefficient in recognizing and solving problems. By learning a problem-solving strategy and applying it to children's literature titles, students with disabilities can learn to become independent and effective problem solvers.

After lunch Mr. Jones was reading aloud to his third-grade resource room students from The Meanest Thing to Say, by Bill Cosby (1997), when suddenly Kenyan raised his hand. He enthusiastically exclaimed, "I am going to try that the next time my brother calls me a name. I think saying `so' will get him to stop." Kenyan, a student with a specific learning disability, identified with the literary character and discovered a new solution to his challenging problem. The identification and insight Kenyan attained from the literary character is often termed bibliotherapy.

What Is Bibliotherapy?

Have you ever read a book for self-help or to find answers to your difficulties, such as how others dealt with a loss, learned to become self-assured, or overcame a hardship? If you responded "yes," then you have used bibliotherapy. Bibliotherapy is simply defined as "the use of books to help people solve problems" (Aiex, 1993, p. 1). Most people have read books to determine how others have approached a delicate issue. Teachers can use children's literature to help students solve problems and generate alternative responses to their issues.

Using books to solve problems is not a new idea but one that has received increased attention recently. Aiex (1993) identified nine potential reasons a teacher may choose to use bibliotherapy with students:

to show an individual that he or she is not the first or only person to encounter such a problem,
to show an individual that there is more than one solution to a problem,
to help a person discuss a problem more freely,
to help an individual plan a constructive course of action to solve a problem,
to develop an individual's self-concept,
to relieve emotional or mental pressure,
to foster an individual's honest self-appraisal,
to provide a way for a person to find interests outside of self, and
to increase an individual's understanding of human behavior or motivations.



This list highlights some of the many potential benefits of using the bibliotherapy approach to problem solving with students. Sridhar and Vaughn (2000) reported that additional benefits from bibliotherapy include improving students' self-concept and behavior.

Bibliotherapy is helpful for students with high-incidence disabilities who are experiencing difficulties or who may be likely to encounter problems similar to those discussed in the literature (McCarthy & Chalmers, 1997). In addition, all children can benefit from being taught a literature bibliotherapy lesson because students are likely to encounter similar issues during their school years. For example, a student may not be confronted by a bully or teased today but may experience similar problems later.

The situations most teachers are exploring with students when using bibliotherapy are types of everyday life problems such as anger, teasing, bullying, and issues of self-concept. These types of problem-solving issues are best accomplished through small-group or whole class readings and discussions of the topic. Doll and Doll (1997) described this approach as "developmental bibliotherapy" because it focuses on helping children cope with developmental needs rather than relying on a clinical or individualized approach to bibliotherapy. Through this developmental process, students will likely experience identification with the main character in the story, experience a catharsis and release of emotion, and develop insight to solve their problems. Developmental bibliotherapy includes the steps of selecting materials to use with students, presenting the materials, and building students' comprehension of the issue.

How Do I Teach Using Bibliotherapy?

The sample lesson plan presented in Appendix A is based on a teaching framework for bibliotherapy and problem solving and contains the four elements of

1. prereading,
2. guided reading,
3. postreading discussion, and
4. a problem-solving/reinforcement activity.





Prereading

The element of prereading contains two steps; the first is selection of materials. Careful selection of material is important so that students can identify and relate to the real or fictional literary character. The school or public library media specialist is an excellent resource to consult when selecting materials because he or she will have a comprehensive knowledge of children's literature rifles.

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What role can virtual manipulatives play in the classroom?


Virtual manipulatives can be used to address standards, such as those in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), which calls for study of both traditional basics, such as multiplication facts, and new basics, such as reasoning and problem solving. Using manipulatives in the classroom assists with those goals and is in keeping with the progressive movement of discovery and inquiry-based learning. For example, in their investigation of 113 K-8 teachers' use of virtual manipulatives in the classroom, Moyer-Packenham, Salkind, and Bolyard (2008) found that content in a majority of the 95 lessons examined focused on two NCTM standards: Number & Operations and Geometry. "Virtual geoboards, pattern blocks, base-10 blocks, and tangrams were the applets used most often by teachers. The ways teachers used the virtual manipulatives most frequently focused on investigation and skill solidification. It was common for teachers to use the virtual manipulatives alone or to use physical manipulatives first, followed by virtual manipulatives" (p. 202).
Virtual manipulatives provide that additional tool for helping students at all levels of ability "to develop their relational thinking and to generalize mathematical ideas" (Moyer-Packenham, Salkind, & Bolyard, 2008, p. 204). All students learn in different ways. For some, mathematics is just too abstract. Most learn best when teachers use multiple instructional strategies that combine "see-hear-do" activities. Most benefit from a combination of visual (i.e., pictures and 2D/3D moveable objects) and verbal representations (i.e., numbers, letters, words) of concepts, which is possible with virtual manipulatives and is in keeping with Paivio and Clark's Dual Coding Theory . The ability to combine multiple representations in a virtual environment allows students to manipulate and change the representations, thus increasing exploration possibilities to develop concepts and test hypotheses. Using tools, such as calculators, allows students to focus on strategies for problem solving, rather than the calculation itself.
According to Douglas H. Clements in 'Concrete' Manipulatives, Concrete Ideas there is pedagogical value of using computer manipulatives. He says, "Good manipulatives are those that are meaningful to the learner, provide control and flexibility to the learner, have characteristics that mirror, or are consistent with, cognitive and mathematics structures, and assist the learner in making connections between various pieces and types of knowledge—in a word, serving as a catalyst for the growth of integrated-concrete knowledge. Computer manipulatives can serve that function" (Section: The Nature of "Concrete" Manipulatives and the Issue of Computer Manipulatives, par. 2).
Christopher Matawa (1998, p. 1) suggests many Uses of Java Applets in Mathematics Education:
Applets to generate examples. Instead of a single image with a picture that gives an example of the concept being taught an applet allows us to have very many examples without the need for a lot of space.
Applets that give students simple exercises to make sure that they have understood a definition or concept.
Applets that generate data. The students can then analyze the data and try to make reasonable conjectures based on the data.
Applets that guide a student through a sequence of steps that the student performs while the applet is running.
Applets that present ''picture proofs''. With animation it is possible to present picture proofs that one could not do without a computer.
An applet can also be in the form of a mathematical puzzle. Students are then challenged to explain how the applet works and extract the mathematics from the puzzle. This also helps with developing problem solving skills.
An applet can set a theme for a whole course. Different versions of an applet can appear at different stages of a course to illustrate aspects of the problem being studied.
While the research is scarce on mathematics achievement resulting from using virtual manipulatives, Moyer-Packenham, Salkind, and Bolyard (2008) found, overall, results from classroom studies and dissertations "have indicated that students using virtual manipulatives, either alone or in combination with physical manipulatives, demonstrate gains in mathematics achievement and understanding" (p. 205). Generalizability might be a concern, however, as found in Kelly Reimer's and Patricia Moyer's action research study (2005), Third-Graders Learn About Fractions Using Virtual Manipulatives: A Classroom Study. The study provides a look into the potential benefits of using these tools for learning. Interviews with learners revealed that virtual manipulatives were helping them to learn about fractions, students liked the immediate feedback they received from the applets, the virtual manipulatives were easier and faster to use than paper-and-pencil, and they provided enjoyment for learning mathematics. Their use enabled all students, from those with lesser ability to those of greatest ability, to remain engaged with the content, thus providing for differentiated instruction. But did the manipulatives lead to achievement gains? The authors do admit to a problem with generalizability of results because the study was conducted with only one classroom, took place only during a two-week unit, and there was bias going into the study. However, results from their pretest/posttest design indicated a statistically significant improvement in students' posttest scores on a test of conceptual knowledge, and a significant relationship between students' scores on the posttests of conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge. Applets were selected from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.
Boston Public Schools has a professional development initiative to provide teachers and students access to virtual manipulatives and technology equipment that directly support the district's math and technology curricula. Partially funded by a NCLB state grant, SELECT Math contains alignments for Grades 6-8, Algebra I and II, and Geometry with a Scope and Sequence calendar describing which book or chapter is being used in math classes during each month of the school year. Click on the individual book/chapter to see the related SELECT Math alignments, worksheets, and links to supporting virtual manipulatives. The project began in 2002 as a collaboration between the Boston Public Schools' Secondary Math and Instructional Technology departments, in conjunction with their partner, the Education Development Center, Inc. CT4ME believes this initiative to be valuable for middle and high school math educators throughout the country. Visit Teacher2Teacher for more on the role of manipulatives.