1. The Title of Your Research Project.
(remember this is a poster about your research)
Your name, school or professional context (keep anonymous) of the research project and your address (optional)
Figure 4. Legend for figure 3.
Figure 2. Legend for figure 1.
Photo
Research focus – what your enquiry is about and why
In this section you need to explain clearly what the purpose and focus of your research was. What were you investigating and why?
The use of ICT to support and enhance maths teaching is a significant focus in my school. The school has recently invested in a subscription to a maths website. I am open and willing to use this resource in my maths teaching but am unsure in what ways this resource will change/support or advance pupils learning and my teaching. The focus of this research was therefore to explore:
‘what kind of learning activities are available on the maths website and in what ways might these support pupil learning?’
In particular I am interested in ways we can promote more active learning approaches to teaching maths and how new technologies can help with this.
Findings/presentation of data
Quotes/extracts from data
to support discussion
In this section you are giving a brief overview of the key points emerging form your data. What did you find out? What issues appeared to become relevant from your data analysis?
Explain clearly the data you choose to include. You should include a range of data created to exemplify and illustrate your key findings from data. You should also explain in this section how you analysed your data.
text for figure 3. you will explain what the data shows, your analysis and interpretation.
text for figure 2. Label each item included and explain why it has been included.
Figure1. Opening statement for figure 1.
Figure 3. Legend for figure 2. screen shot of online task
Picture/scanned extract from pupil
mindmap/visual representation
Final thoughts/next steps
In this section you should think about what the possible implications are for you, your pupils, your colleagues and the wider educational community. You may also wish to consider what might be the next steps for your research. What limitations are there on this research project. It ay also raise issues that you think are worth considering more critically at a wider educational level.
I am concerned that many of the online resources we have available for our teaching purposes are actually not suitably interactive. I think that many staff are unaware of this and are suing these materials unquestioningly….
(Ref to literature again here as appropriate)
Further critical analysis of all our online learning resources is essential. …
Methods used
Here is where you can give details about the research methods used in your research process.
In this section you need to explain clearly what research methods you used and a brief explanation why. For example you might explain that you chose to interview pupils and create visual data, why and how:
Visual Data: Pupils created visual representations of their perceptions of how ICT was used in their maths lessons generally. This was done at the start of the research project. The pupils were also asked to work in small groups to produce mindmaps (visual and text) to explore what they did on the maths website and their thoughts on this.
Screen shots of the maths website were collected and I made detailed notes about the types of activities pupils were doing on the website – using a framework I created based on behaviourist and social-constructivist approaches.
Interviews: I met with 6 pupils individually to talk with them about their thoughts on the use of computers and other ICT in their maths lesson. These interviews were open and loosely structured – I began the interview by asking ‘Can you tell me about the ways you use ICT in your maths lesson’. I also asked the pupils which activities they did using ICT were most helpful for their learning and why they thought that.
Discussion of analysis and interpretation
In this section you should provide a critical discussion of the key issues you believe emerge from your research and consider the implications of these. This discussion should make reference to other literature and theory as appropriate and given the limitations of the poster. This could be done in a mix of prose and bullet points.
Two significant issues emerge from my data:
The online activities appear to support behaviourist approaches to teaching and learning
The pupils often did not make connections between skills taught and the online activities
On careful analysis of the online activities I realised that the kinds of questions asked of pupils were rather superficial and only required basic recall of facts. Very little opportunity for evaluation or synthesis of information was offered – I found this particularly surprising as I thought the activities appeared to be very engaging and required a lot of engagement on part of the pupil. However I realise that much of the activity is at a low level. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) argue that much of what is promoted as online learning is simply worksheets repackaged as ‘interactive’…
Be sure to explain what the data is and annotate appropriately
Outline of project/approach/intervention – brief overview of the project
In this section you are giving some detail about the project/approach/issue you are investigating within your own context. This may a brief outline of a new approach to teaching maths, it might be an issue that you find puzzling or problematic within your own classroom. You will have space to elaborate on the theoretical justification for this in your written commentary but a brief bit should be included here. Online learning is promoted as a key way to support active learning approaches. Pupils are able to work independently and they are engaged in meaningful tasks. (ref literature & theory briefly) I introduced the use of the “maths interactive’ website to my primary 7 class as part of their core maths activities. …
References
Body text - Ariel type, at 32 point. You can also resize text blocks with handles.
A 32 pt font size is easy to read at a 4 to 5 foot distance. You can use a smaller pt size if your poster is text heavy.