Aislamiento y protección

Overview

Six triads of parents, teachers and students were asked to engage in BAIP math resources. Teachers, students, and parents had no previous experience with BAIP other than what was shared during workshops conducted by me. Prior to using the BAIP resources, teachers were walked through the program, and parents and students received initial informational letters followed by manuals and documents with steps detailing what they should be doing after providing consent (Appendix I and II).

The intervention followed this sequence: teacher taught a BAIP lesson, worked with his/her students to complete the accompanying handout and tutorial, and then gave parents access to the complementary parent activity. Teachers selected lessons that were suitable for their students (see Appendix VII). Lesson topics included were (a) adding, subtracting and multiplying mixed fractions, (b) multiplication and division facts, (c) greatest common factor and least common multiples, and (d) ratio, of which the latter two were assigned to two students instead of one. All observations and interviews were conducted in a classroom allocated by the private school and were audio and video recorded. Parents engaged in informal learning

activities with his/her child at home prior to the interview and then engaged in structured learning activities on the day of the interview. Parents and students were observed engaging in the structured portion of the parent activity. All parties were interviewed. Data was collected and responses were written for the guiding research questions. I found that the responses to the questions had some overlap which indicated that a thematic structure would be better suited for presenting findings. So instead of presenting responses to six research questions, chapter 4 is structured by major themes. The main themes describe how (a) parents and teachers perceive

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parent involvement (PI) differently, how that results in (b) different requirements of parent resources, and that (c) BAIP is a functional parent engagement model. The findings suggest an emergent partnership for learning at home that requires synchronization of teacher and parent perceptions of PI.

Sample Population Parents

Three fathers and three mothers originally agreed to take part in the study. After the workshop, one father asked his wife to participate in his place. Final participants included two fathers and four mothers. All parents in the study are of Caucasian ethnicity, within the age range of 36 to 55. Annual household incomes ranged from 70,000 to 300,000, although the parent that reported the 70,000 mentioned that it may be a little high. Parents who took part in the study had basic degrees, masters, or doctorates. Their spouses had high school diplomas, bachelor degrees or doctorates. Self-rated comfort level in teaching someone else math ranged from not

comfortable to very comfortable. Teachers

All three teachers in the study each have a Masters in Special Education and experience teaching in both public and private schools spanning 12 to 36 years. The three teachers were observed as having different levels of comfort teaching math, one having published a math textbook, one teaching high school math, and the third specializing in reading.

Students

Six boys and two girls, ranging in age from 11 to 16, participated in the study, all of whom have Individualized Education Plans (IEP). Two students are on the autism spectrum but

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are high-functioning, the rest have varying difficulty with reading and writing because of dyslexia and auditory processing deficits. Four of the six are introverted and displayed varying levels of math ability. Four were in middle school and functioning at or below fifth grade in Mathematics and the remaining two were in high school and functioning at middle school level Mathematics.

The Triads

Triads 1 and 2

Mr. Mark (Teacher)

Mr. Mark is a veteran math teacher with more than 30 years of teaching experience in math and special education. He has an extensive knowledge and in-depth understanding of math and has published math resources. He teaches middle school students. Mr. Mark selected Trent and Miles to take part in the study to test how beneficial the BAIP resource might be for users. Trent has dyslexia and Miles has Asperger’s syndrome and neither of them have major

difficulties in math.

Trent (Son) and Tanya (Mother)

Tanya and Trent is a mother-son pair who teases each other jovially. Tanya is an online instructor by trade and helps Trent, her second child, with his homework. Both Trent and Tanya shared that Trent works better with his mother on math homework than with his father. Trent’s father does not get involved too much as “Generally, you know, it rises to a conflict.” Tanya explains that Trent and his father have “a totally different way of looking at things. “ She said that her husband “sees it in his head. He can't transfer that to Trent so I do as much visual as I can.” Trent has commented, “Mom, you totally get how I’m thinking!” Even though Tanya and

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Trent work better together, they have their fair share of fusses and fights. Trent enjoys playing tricks on his mom when they work together.

Miles (Son) and Marissa (Mother)

Marissa and Miles is a mother-son pair who demonstrates a fondness for structure and big words in their regular conversation. Marissa used to work but is now a stay-at-home mom who had to home-school her two children for a year when her husband was deciding on where to move to for his job. Miles is her first born, has Asperger’s, sticks to rules and routines, and is an excellent student. Marissa rarely has to help him with homework extensively. Marissa explains that help for Miles isn't necessarily “help me” with homework. It's more a call to “be a physical body in the same room... to keep [his] anxiety levels down.”