nirasha premaratne

8/14/2019 Nirasha Premaratne

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Nirasha PremaratneSri Lanka


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The Article

Learning Disabilities Research & Practice,17(2), 90-106

Explicitly Teaching for Transfer:Effects on the Mathematical Problem-

Solving Performance of Students withMathematic Disabilities

Lynn S. Fuchs

Douglas FuchsCarol L. Hamlett

Amanda C. Appleton

The purpose of this study was to explore methods to enhance mathematicalproblem solving for students with mathematics disabilities (MD) . A small-groupproblem-solving tutoring treatment incorporated explicit instruction on problem-solution rules and on transfer. The transfer component was designed to increase

awareness of the connections between novel and familiar problems bybroadening the categories by which students group problems requiring the samesolution methods and by prompting students to search novel problems for thesebroad categories. To create a stringent test of efficacy, we incorporated acomputer-assisted practice condition, which provided students with directpractice on real-world problem-solving tasks. We randomly assigned 40 studentsto problem-solving tutoring, computer-assisted practice, problem-solving tutoringplus computer-assisted practice, or control, and pre- and post-tested students onthree problem-solving tasks. On story problems and transfer story problems,

tutoring (with or without computer-assisted practice) effected reliably strongergrowth compared to control; effects on real-world problem solving, althoughmoderate to large, were not statistically significant. Computer-assisted practiceadded little value beyond tutoring but, alone, yielded moderate effects on twomeasures.


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The Article


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Two QuestionsHow important do you think is it for a student to be good in

Mathematical skills that helps him or her to solve real-worldproblems?

Would you encourage your students to do their best inMathematics whatever their skill level is?


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Key wordsTransfer refers to a process whereby individuals can take what

they learn in one setting to other situations (some similar andsome dissimilar)

Example: you teach a pupil how to spell a word correctly usingone method in class and then the student uses the correctspelling in another situation such as writing sentences usingspelling words, or spelling the words correctly for anotherteacher

Explicitly teaching to transferSome strategies have been developed for helping students to

transfer what they learn (these are called transfer-inducingvariables ) and when you do this overtly by telling the studentthat you are using these strategies and then have them directlypractice using the strategies .it is called explicitly teaching to

transfer


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The purpose of this studyExplore methods to enhance mathematical

problem-solving for students with mathematicsdisabilities (MD)

MDmy physics and chemistry classessolution


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T he Background

T he current study looked at effects on students withmathematics disabilities (MD) using small-group tutoring.

Mathematical problem solving, which requires students toapply knowledge, skills, and strategies to novel problems, is a

form of transfer that can be difficult to effect (cf. Bransford &Schwartz, 1999; Mayer, Quilici, & Moreno, 1999).

T his is especially true for students with disabilities, for whom

transfer is differentially challenging (White, 1984).Previous work (Fuchs et al., in press) has demonstrated the

efficacy of these methods for students without disabilities using

a whole-class teaching format.


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The RationaleAPPLYING FRA MEWO RKSTO EXPLICITLY TEACH FO RT RAN SFER AN D P RO MOTE P ROBLE M SOLVINGProblem-solving tutoring treatment was based on Cooperand Sweller s (1987) and Salomon and Perkins s (1989)frameworks.

T he treatment incorporated two components.1. teaching problem solutions for four types of problemstructures

2. explicit instruction in transfer, did (at least in part) focus

on superficial (i.e., defined in the cognitive literature asirrelevant, e.g., Ross, 1989) problem features.


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MethodologyP articipantsFrom three schools in a southeastern city, six special

education teachers agreed to have their fourth-gradestudents with mathematics disabilities (MD) participate.Teachers nominated 62 students who met two criteria: (1)

according to cumulative records, their standard scores on

an individually administered intelligence test exceeded 89,and (2) their special education teachers reported that theyhad MD.

Computational Fluency TestT he 40 students who scored 1.5 standard deviations

below a regional normative sample were included in thestudy.


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Methodology

Stratifying so that each condition was representedapproximately equally for each teacher

randomly assigned students so that 10 students were in each of four conditions:

problem-solving tutoring with computer-assisted practice,computer-assisted practice,problem-solving tutoring,control.

Randomized-to- G roups P retest- P osttest Design


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MethodologyAll participating students received a background unit on

approaching mathematical problem solvingT

he topics in this unit were: making sure that answers make sense,aligning numbers from word problems for computation, checking workfor computational errors, and checking work for word labels,monetary signs, and math symbols.

T he research assistant (RA), a master s level special educator,conducted these lessons with all students in the resource classes (i.e.,7 14 students per class) regardless of whether students were part of the study.

students in the three experimental groups received supplementarytreatment.


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MethodologyExperimental Treatments - Tutoring

Problem-solving tutoring incorporated two components.T

he first was teaching the underlying concepts within and rules for solving each of the four problem structures:shopping-list problems, half problems, buying bag

problems, and pictograph problemsT he second component of problem-solving tutoring was

explicit instruction on transfer. The teacher first taught theconcept of transfer


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MethodologyExperimental Treatments - C omputer-Assisted Practice

students logged onto the software and identified the problem-

solving task on which they currently were workingno reading or writing was required to use the software. T hecomputer read and re-read all words/text as requested by students


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MethodologyMeasures

story problems,

transfer story problems,real-world problem solving

Data Collection

RA collected data in small groupsecond observer helped supervise all sessions to ensure accuratedata collectionGiven work (Fuchs et al., 2000) demonstrating the deleterious

effects of students unfamiliarity with performance assessments,research assistants delivered a 45-minute test-wiseness lessonimmediately before pre- and posttesting in all study conditions


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Data A nalysisone-factor ANOVA (tutoring with problem-solving tutoring versus

computer-assisted practice versus tutoring plus computer versuscontrol).

parallel analyses on pretreatment scores (to assess treatmentgroup comparability) and on improvement scores (to assess treatmentgroup effects).

Fisher LSD post hoc procedure (Seaman, Levin, & Serlin, 1991).To estimate the practical significance of effects, we computed effect sizes (ESs)

by subtracting the difference between improvementscores and then dividing by the pooled standard deviation of theimprovement/square root of 2(1 rxy) (Glass, McGaw, & Smith, 1981)

identified the proportion of non-responders on each measure for eachtreatment group: the percentage of students whose improvement failed to exceedthe control group s mean level of improvement.


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Results and Discussionpretreatment performance of students in the four conditions was

comparable, with ANOVAs conducted on pretreatment scoresrevealing no significant effects

T he problem-solving tutoring provided students with explicitinstruction on rules for problem solution and explicit instruction ontransfer. Findings showed that this tutoring promoted mathematicalproblem-solving growth among students with MD


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Discussion

EXTE RNAL VALI DITY the small sample limits generalizability and, as already mentioned,

introduces the possibility of rejecting an effective treatment.participants reading scores were low (i.e., means approximating

60 whereas typical first graders read 50 words correctly per minute,for a three-minute reading score of 150 on this study s readingmeasure). As this suggests, the majority of the students with MD in

this study experienced co-morbidity with reading disability.

LIM ITATION SINTE RNAL VALI DITY

tutoring was delivered by one research assistantthe nature of the tutoring, which was explicit (Carnine, 1997), with

heavy use of worked examples (Cooper & Sweller, 1987), and peermediation (Fuchs et al., 1997).

Did the experimental treatment make

the difference in this specificinstance rather than the otherextraneous variables?

To what population, settings,treatment variables, a measurementvariable can this observed effect be

generalized?


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Class DiscussionDo you think you have students with MD in your subject classes?

Has it interfered with your students learning?If so, what have you done to help them overcome this problem?

Do you think this study, however limited or incomplete raisedawareness related to MD and made us think that we may be ableto do something with students with MD to succeed in our lesson?


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Thank you for your patience

T HE END

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