Unit 5 Final Draft

Section 1: Description of Project

For this project, I chose to do the Web Activity that asks you to creat an image that uses words and symbols to imply hierarchy. The image is called Partial-Sums Algorithm and it is a challenging activity that I use with my second graders. When I introduce this, they often struggle with the concept. I'm planning to use this image with my group of students to make the concept easier to learn. My goal with this image is to show, hierarchically, the steps one should take to complete a two digit addition math problem using the partial-sums algorithm. I used a different color with the words and arrows for each step to help show what it looks like as each step is done.

Section 2: Revised image

Section 3: Usability comments from project

Jamey,

I like the image. I did not know what a partial sums algorithm was so I wanted to see if I could understand it. I did. A couple thoughts.1. The arrows do not line up exactly with the rows. I realize this is maybe difficult because you need the arrows wide enough for the text, but it was just a thought.2. I do not know if it would help, but I see the word ones in red and the 14 in red, but the 6 and 8 are black. I think maybe they could be in red and the 5 and 2 in blue. The problem then, I realize is what happens with the last step? Red and blue make purple (This is just a thought. I do not know if that is helpful for 2nd graders.)I do really like the images the only big thing to me is the arrows not lining up. I think the others things could be good or bad. You know your students I trust your judgment on that.

Rachel

Section 4: Original image

Section 5: Justification Statements

When I created this image I wanted to make sure that it had a certain reading order (p. 133) so that my students know exactly where to start and end up towards the lower right corner of the image. I also made sure to place the words before the numbers (p. 139). To help with each step I numbered each step and created the three colors. I also added signal words (p. 146) to each step. With the suggestion of my partner I changed the last step from green to purple since you have to add the red step to the blue step and red plus blue equals purple, not green. My partner also thought that maybe I should try to change the numbers in the ones column and the numbers in the tens column to the corresponding colors. I tried that and discovered that it distracted too much from the partial sums that I wanted my students to notice. I kept the original addition problem black to avoid confusion between the problem and the answers.