The Influence of Online Mathematics Activity on Elementary School Students' Engagement and Learning in a High-Needs Contexts

Background

Technology can be a powerful tool for learning and innovating in our world. Students can use technology tools to explore that can be used to promote innovation and creativity. “The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) sets a national vision and plan for learning enabled by technology through building on the work of leading education researchers; district, school, and higher education leaders; classroom teachers; developers; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations” (Office of Educational Technology, 2016). In elementary schools there is a big push towards enhancing student learning with technology and students are being prepared to thrive in a technology evolving world. Research shows that teachers are embedding more technology into their curriculum and in their classroom (Dondlinger et al., 2016; Trust 2017; Yarbro et al., 2016; Yin et al., 2015).

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards (ISTE, 2016) are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process. Teachers are continually trying to use these standards in the classroom to support technological learning. These standards include these concepts:

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  Empowered Learner: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

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  Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

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  Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

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  Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.

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  Computational Thinker: Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

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  Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals.

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  Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Students can also utilize technology to help enhance their skills in the current content areas. This current study focuses on the use of technology within mathematics. Teachers of math can support student learning by using both online math activities and digital programs (e.g., iReady, Dreambox, etc.). While online math activities provide students with a digital platform to manipulative mathematical representations and either complete specific tasks or explore representations in a more open, less guided manner, the digital programs provide structured specific activities that can either be assigned by a teacher or determined based on student performance on a pre-assessment. In this chapter, we examine fourth-grade students’ experiences with a specific mathematics online activity, Thinking Blocks Multiplication by Math Playground, and its influence on students’ engagement and their achievement on a pre- and post-assessment.