The Hand-Brain-Math Connection Problem Statement and Narrative My original degree is in occupational therapy, a rehabilitation profession which seeks to train both physically and psychiatrically challenged individuals for maximal independence. After graduation and a 9-month internship, I found myself working predominantly at skilled nursing facilities interacting with mostly stroke victims and orthopedic patients. I found treating stroke victims to be the most rewarding as often with therapeutic intervention they would make astounding gains within weeks of the original brain damage. Also, their initial symptoms often presented as a complex mystery waiting to be unraveled by an astute detective. One of the most mysterious effects of a stroke as well as challenging to treat is when a patient is experiencing left or right “neglect”. In the case of left/right neglect, the patient’s actual eyesight and optical nerve are not damaged, but somehow the proper perception of visual and tactile information on a certain side of the body is greatly curtailed. Such a patient, if tested by an ophthalmologist, would be diagnosed with a normal field of vision. However, in practice, the stroke victim would function as if the left or right side of his body simply did not exist. For example, in walking or wheeling through a doorway a left neglect patient would often run into the left door jam because they did not perceive its existence. A family member may sit on the right of a left-neglect patient and carry on a conversation, but if the family member moves and sits on the left, the stroke victim would complain that the member just “disappeared”. This lack of perception often takes months of intensive therapeutic retaining, but in the end, being able to function in a “whole” verses “half” world is worth it.
This switch in order would provide further contrast of the electronic only verses the pencil/paper shadow method. The students where given the following instructions page. On the left periods 1, 2, 4, and 8 were instructed to do the paper/pencil shadow first and on the right periods 5, 6, and 7 took the purely electronic quiz first. For the pencil/paper quiz students were given a worksheet with tactile strategies cued at the top stating, “For the following problems, re-draw the diagram, re-write the basic
given information, trace lines and segments, trace and sweep angles, show all computations and algebra steps. “ See example on right. Scores were collected via the ALEKS system and tabulated in an excel spreadsheet for each class. Phase II-Paper Word Problem About a week after students completed the ALEKS quizzes, they were given an in-class survey and a single word problem to complete. The survey asked the following questions to establish the fact that my students were indeed Digital Natives: 1. At what grade did you begin to use a computer on a regular basis such as playing online games, using educational software, looking items up on the internet, watching videos, etc…? kindergarten 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade 2. In which grade did you learn to keyboard? kindergarten 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade 3. In which grade did you begin to keyboard most of your written academic assignments? kindergarten 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade 4. In which grade did you begin to use a calculator when completing math assignments? kindergarten 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade school school school school
The instructions for the paper word problem included the following: “You may have the following items on your desk, but only a pencil is required. You can solve the word problem using any method you choose. Do the best you can. “ Most students finished solving the word problem in a time span of 5 to 10 minutes. Each student solution was graded in two parts. The paper was graded first based on accuracy using the following rubric: ACCURACY Accuracy score: _______ Basic Diagram Not accurate Partially accurate Fully accurate 0 1 2 Solve for “x” Not accurate Partially accurate Fully accurate 0 1 2 Solve for individual angles Not accurate Partially accurate Fully accurate 0 1 2 Solve for <ABF Not accurate Partially accurate Fully accurate 0 1 2 After grading for accuracy, the same quiz was graded for the number of tactile interactive techniques incorporated while attempting to solve the problem. The tactile rubric used was: TACTILE TECHNIQUES Tactile score: _______ 1. Physically filtered key words and numbers by highlighting/underlining/boxing. Not done at all Partially completed Fully completed 0 0.5 1 2. Marked diagram with descriptive notations for bisected and complementary. Not done at all Partially completed Fully completed 0 0.5 1