Anna Perrin

Instructional Repertoire Project

Action Plan
The strategy that I have chosen to approach for my Instructional Repertoire Project is to use
technology and a structure similar to that of gaming to help my students develop a comfort level
that allows them to take risks by making predictions and experimenting with the unknown. I
selected this strategy for this specific goal because I have observed that my students are very
enthusiastic about the opportunity to use iPads in their classes. I hope that this enthusiasm will
carry into the students practicing making predictions because they have been very hesitant to
do this in the past, which I have perceived as being due to a fear of making a mistake, either
publically or privately.

The task I have chosen utilizes iPads in an innovative way that is enhanced by the technology
integration. It incorporates several aspects of gaming: (1) progress markers show incremental
progress, (2) the tasks are varied and increase in difficulty as progress is made, (3) effort is
rewarded whether there is success or not, (4) the activity provides students with immediate
feedback that allows them to see how they are being successful and where they are not being
successful, and (5) uncertainty is a key feature, leaving something to be discovered. I expect
that this format will significantly increase the degree to which my students engage with the
challenges of the task, by merit of the gaming-esque features and the use of technology.

I will prepare my students for the task with a Do Now warm-up that asks students to graph an
equation and identify how the numbers in that equation (slope and y-intercept) appear in the
graph, with the goal of establishing a greater connection between the different representations
and preparing students for the type of thinking they will be engaging in once we begin the
activity. With this introduction, I will be modelling the thinking process that I will be expecting

from my students as they independently engage in the task. One technique suggested in
Modeling Thinking Aloud1 is to follow three steps: (1) Plan a think-aloud script as if you are a
struggling student, making sure you anticipate pitfalls, traps, and difficulties and how to
overcome them; (2) Explain why you are modeling and what you expect them to take away
from the demonstration; and (3) Debrief, asking the students what strategies or procedures they
saw you utilize as you performed the task. I will also use this opportunity to demonstrate the
concept of domain, which will be a key idea, particularly in the latter portion of the task in which
students will be combining multiple linear equations and manipulating their domains. My hope is
that this will enable my students to productively engage in the task with less need for frequent
assistance, allowing me to focus my attentions on monitoring student progress and facilitating
student progress only as necessary.

In order to maintain engagement, I will be monitoring student progress from my own laptop,
where I will be able to track student progress and view their submissions for each step of the
task in real-time. I have high expectations for my students ability to succeed in this task and to
be able to use critical reasoning to identify patterns that allow them to progress. One potential
concern that I have with my students engagement in the task is if the gaming element becomes
the sole focus of some students, meaning that they focus on collecting stars rather than
identifying and utilizing patterns, or that they use random guessing rather than reasoning to
determine how to modify their equations in order to accomplish the assigned goal. For these
students, my ability to monitor with my own technology will allow me to diagnose these
behaviors early in the task and focus my attentions on managing their engagement in the task.

1Modeling Thinking Aloud [A Strategy for Teaching Students Thinking Processes]. (2008).
Http://www.scsk12.org/uf/TalentManagement/vlp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Modeling-ThinkingAloud-.pdf, Research for Better Teaching, Inc.

While students work, I will be specifically monitoring their work for anchoring conceptions and
alternative conceptions2 (Lucariello, 2014). Specifically, I will be looking for misconceptions that
need to be immediately addressed one-on-one while students work, as well as for both
anchoring conceptions and alternative conceptions that would be valuable to extract and
elaborate upon during the summary discussion. Lucariello suggests the use of differential
diagnosis: you make at least two hypotheses about what students may be thinking, then choose
or create problems that can distinguish the correct one. I can modify this approach for the
format of my task which may not allow me to spend much time with individuals by using
questioning to separate my hypotheses and identify the more accurate one. I will plan questions
ahead of time that connect to misconceptions which I have predicted, and formulate my
questions so that they require more than one-word answers3 (Ralph, 1999) so that I can more
accurately diagnose student thinking.

The challenge that I foresee for monitoring myself is ensuring that I am devoting sufficient time
to monitoring all students using the tools provided by the Desmos program, and avoiding
providing too much support to my students in a way that lowers the cognitive demand of the
task. I chose this task to help my students develop prediction-skills, and I will need to be diligent
in how I am responding to student questions to ensure that I am not inadvertently suggesting a
pathway to the solution. To manage this, I will focus my attention while providing guidance on
asking questions that probe student thinking and require my students to elaborate upon their
current knowledge in such a way that I am providing scaffolding that supports their discovery of
a solution.

2Lucariello, J. (2014). How do my students think: Diagnosing student thinking. American Psychological
Association. Published April, 30, 2014.
3Ralph, E. G. (1999a). Developing novice teachers oral-questioning skills. McGill Journal of Education,
34(1), 29-47.