Rationale For Applying The Rocket Math Program To The Current Study Essay Sample

Improvement in mathematics performance across the United States has been an objective to be achieved in the education system. For the fourth-grade students, the United States is ranked 11th among 35 countries. Additionally, for the eighth graders, United States is ranked at ninth position among 47 countries. Compared to other industrialized countries performance of mathematics in United States is considered poor. Despite the fact, that assessment scores for mathematics improve at the fourth and eighth-grade levels, the levels of proficiency seem to go down as the students advance in school. For instance, based on a 2009 assessment, the proficiency of fourth graders was established at 40%, the proficiency of the eleven graders was established at 32% while that of the twelve graders was assessed at 23%. This trend provides evidence of a need to introduce a math improvement program to increase performance in mathematics as students’ progress through school.
One of the major problems identified by algebra teachers is the fluency in dealing with whole numbers, and this entails adeptness in handling basic addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. Based on previous literature, a program that has been applied to improve performance in math is the Rocket Math program. Based on the previous study, the program has been applied to a student with ADHD and classified under special education based on average cognitive abilities and challenges experienced in handling math exercises.

Evidence of application of the Rocket Math program provides only one study available in the literature as stated above. The previous research has applied the program to a single student despite the fact that the program being originally designed to be applied at a classroom level. As such, the current study was developed and aimed to apply the program at a classroom level. The target was to improve the multiplication fluency in three of the fifth graders classes.

Participants

The number of students in the study included 44 students in three-fifth-grade classrooms in a rural central Pennsylvania public district school. Ages of the students ranged between ten and eleven years. All the three classes were taught by one teacher ensuring similar content. The target for the fifth graders was multiplication fluency using the Rocket Math program. Of the 44 students, 23 were females while 21 were male. Furthermore, the number of students receiving special education services was eleven. Among these eleven students, eight were classified as having a Specific Learning Disability in reading and in math. One was classified under Other Health Impairment, and the remaining two were classified as having both. The eleven students with special education services were in two classes, and the third class only consisted of regular education students.

Procedure

The study began with students doing a pre-intervention writing probe involving the copying of many numbers as possible. Subsequently, each student’s goal for the study was set based on the many numbers each student wrote. Four writing probes were administered to the students each having a specific goal. Students practiced in pairs with one student reading out the problems and providing the answers. The other student (checker) had the answers and checked to see if the other student referred to in the study as the learner was correct or hesitated in answering. If the learner erred or hesitated, the checker provided the answer upon which the learner was supposed to repeat the problem and answer three times. Consequently, the learner supported the three problems with facts and answers again. Roles were switched after two minutes and the process repeated. Each practice session was timed, and if students completed the questions early, the students repeated the process again. The writing probes were done every day to provide the level on which a student would practice that day. The implication was that if a student exceeded the goal set in a writing probe, the student advanced to another level in the sequence. There were 26 levels in total from A-Z. Students were required to fill a Rocket Chart to monitor their progress, and a multiplication-monitoring test was done every two weeks to provide an assessment of the students’ progress. Students exchanged papers with other peers in the classroom for grading each other’s work and the performance recorded and graphed. The researcher collected data for the performance and bi-weekly probes for analysis.

Results

The mean number of levels passed for the whole number of students for the study was 15.25. Mean for special education was 12.55 and for the regular students was 16.25. The mean percentage advancement for all participants was 22.98%. Percentage advancement means for special education students was 21.09% and that for regular education students was 23.61%.

Prospective about the Study

Future application of such a study needs to have an assessment on how effective the students retain basic math information and facts. The duration for this kind of assessment needs to be longer especially until the students finish their grade levels. This can help address the issue of declining proficiency and fluency in math as student’s progress through school. Furthermore, focus of the study needs to be inclusive of other basic math procedures such as addition, subtraction and division to provide a more comprehensive effect the program can have if applied properly and some of the limitations of this study addressed.