Geroche 1

Taryn Geroche
Prof. Tricia Engelhardt
EDUC 450
Teacher Work Sample
30 November 2015

Data Analysis
The second lesson I taught this semester was about e and the natural logarithm. The
students completed an exploration activity that led them through a discovery of the number e, a
comparison of interest rates compounded yearly and compounded continuously, logarithm
properties applied to the natural logarithm, and solving equations using e and ln(x). In order to
determine how well the students learned this content from the exploration activity, they were
asked to take a pre-test and post-test about the topics to be covered.

Pre-Test
The pre-test was given at the beginning of the class, and the post-test was given at the
end, so the entire process happened within a 90 minute class period. Both tests contained the
same questions, each addressing a distinct component of the lesson as listed above. The
questions were as follows:
1) What is the number e?
This was a free response question, looking for any information the students could tell me
about e. Any answer that said something true about e was counted as being correct.
2) What is another way to write loge(x)?
This question was also free response, though I was specifically looking for the answers
ln or ln(x).
3) Will you earn more money using compound interest or continuous interest?
This was a multiple choice question, with possible answers compound, continuous,
and not sure. The correct answer is continuous.

Geroche 2

2x

4) Solve the exponential equation: e 6 = 24

This problem had a blank for the students to enter the number they found when they
solved for the variable x. The correct answer is 1.70059 with any number of digits
included after the decimal place.
The best part about this pre-test and post-test was that the students could take them
online, using a Google Form. The students frequently take quizzes in this class that are
administered using this format, so it was very simple to make the transition into taking a pre-test
and post-test in this way. We simply listed a link on the class webpage, and when it was time to
take the tests, we asked the students to all get out their laptops to complete it. The results from
Google Forms are immediately translated into a Google Sheet, so I had live results as the
students answered the questions, all laid out in one place. Since many of the questions were free
response, I had to grade the results by hand, but this was probably the most difficult part of the
whole process!
The graph below shows the number of students who answered each question correctly (in
blue) and incorrectly (in red), out of the total of 28 students who were evaluated. The results are
also listed in the table to the right. The results of the pre-test were as follows:

Number of Students

Pre-Test Results
Pre-Test Results
Correct Incorrect
Question #
Answer Answer

25
20

Question #1
Question #2
Question #3
Question #4

15
10
5
0

1
Correct Answer
Incorrect Answer

Question Number

2
0
11
2

26
28
17
26

Geroche 3
Clearly, the results were exactly what you would expect from a pre-test: a few students
answered correctly, a few more got lucky and guessed correctly on the multiple choice question
(#3), and a whole lot of students had no idea how to answer the questions. It is entirely possible,
based on these results, that some of the students had prior knowledge about interest rates
maybe this was a real world example that they had actually encountered before. However, I
assume it was more likely that they guessed correctly, based on whatever reasoning they used. It
would also be reasonable to assume that a few of the students may have already known the
information that was to be covered in the lesson, since at least two or three people got almost all
of the questions right. However, upon further inspection of the raw data, we can see that it was
not the same students who were consistently getting all of the correct answers, but rather a
random selection of students who may have had a small amount of knowledge about the subject.
There were a few trends in the data that were worth mentioning. For Question #1, there
were five students whose answers all referenced the use of E in scientific notation. This is an
understandable misconception, because their calculators notation of very large or very small
numbers is probably the only place theyve seen an e in math before. By the end of the lesson,
students should understand that e and scientific notation are completely separate ideas. For
Question #2, there were two students who answered e y = x, which is a clever answer
demonstrating their knowledge of the properties of exponents and logarithms, but it was not the
answer I was looking for based on the purpose of the lesson. By the end of the lesson, the
answer I was looking for, ln(x), should be more obvious to the students than this other answe
This pre-test confirmed for me that the students did not have any prior knowledge about e
or the natural logarithm, and that this lesson would be their first exposure to it, as I expected.
Therefore, I needed to be very descriptive in my teaching, so that the students would not miss

Geroche 4
any details, and very attentive in my questioning, to make sure that they were not getting any of
the wrong ideas.

Post-Test
After completing the exploration activity, the students were asked to take a post-test. The
goal of the post-test was to show that the students had mastered the concepts at the heart of the
lesson, as listed above, based on their ability to answer one question about each concept on the
post-test. The post-test included all of the same questions as the pre-test, and each question was
graded in the same way. I constructed the tests this way because I thought it would be the most
direct and precise way to compare the students knowledge before the lesson to their knowledge
after it. So, the post-test questions were as follows:
1) What is the number e? (free response, looking for anything true about e)
2) What is another way to write loge(x)? (free response, looking for ln or ln(x))
3) Will you earn more money using compound interest or continuous interest?
(multiple choice, continuous)
2x
4) Solve the exponential equation: e 6 = 24 (number entry, 1.70059)
The graph below shows the number of students who answered each question correctly (in
blue) and incorrectly (in red), out of the total of 28 students who were evaluated. The results are
also listed in the table to the right. The results of the post-test were as follows:

Number of Students

Post-Test Results
Post-Test Results
Correct Incorrect
Question #
Answer Answer

25
20
15

Question #1
Question #2
Question #3
Question #4

10
5
0

1
Correct Answer
Incorrect Answer

Question Number

25
26
28
15

3
2
0
13

Geroche 5
These results were very promising: for as many answers as were wrong on the pre-test,
we have almost as many correct answers on the post-test. Nearly every student answered
Question #1 and Question #2 right, though one student did miss both of these questions, so I
would want to check in with her to see how she was feeling about these concepts. A few
students had especially impressive answers for Question #1: while most students answered
2.718, which is the numerical value of e, one student said its a transcendental number, and
another answered e is a decimal that represent continuous growth. These are both true
statements about e as well, so they were correct answers, but they were answers that went above
and beyond, which is great.
Question #3 was the besteveryone got it correct! This was excellent, because even
though it was perhaps the easiest question, it was arguably the most important, because it relates
directly to necessary life skill. The only question that did not yield entirely favorable results was
Question #4. However, there are multiple reasons that these results are understandable.
Question #4 was easily the hardest of the questions, because it involved all of their prior
knowledge about logarithms and exponents, and what they had just learned about e and natural
log. Also, the section about solving equations was at the very end of the exploration activity, so
students who ran out of time may not have completed it before taking the post-test. Overall, I am
still not worried by the results of this questionstudents were all to finish the exploration for
homework, and I would make sure that they would have more time to practice these kinds of
problems before the end of the unit.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this lesson further, and to better understand my
students, it was useful to investigate the learning that took place within specific subgroups of
students. First, I split the class results into boys vs. girls. It is possible for a lesson to be more

Geroche 6
suited to a certain gender of students based on their general prior knowledge, the societal norms,
or the format of the lesson, so I wanted to explore this possibility.
The graphs below show what percentage of girls/boys got each question right, and what
percentage got each wrong. Correct answers are represented by the darker color, while incorrect
answers are represented by the lighter color. The results for each subgroup were as follows:

100%

Post-Test Results: Boys

Percentage of Boys

Percentage of Girls

Post-Test Results: Girls

80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Question Question Question Question

#1
#2
#3
#4
Incorrect Answer
Question Number
Correct Answer

Question #1
Question #2
Question #3
Question #4

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Question Question Question Question

#1
#2
#3
#4
Incorrect Answer
Question Number
Correct Answer

Post-Test: Girls vs. Boys

Girls
Boys
Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect
12
2
13
1
12
2
14
0
14
0
14
0
8
6
7
7

For this activity, it appears that the results for the boys and for the girls were quite
similar. This may have to do with the fact that the students were paired with their table partners
randomly, so some pairs were of the same gender while others were a boy and a girl. Most
importantly for me though, it appears that I successfully created an exploration that was not
biased toward either boys or girls, so all of the students were able to learn from it.

Geroche 7
A second interesting set of subgroups to investigate was the freshmen vs. the
upperclassmen (10th-12th). Freshmen in an Algebra II class are technically ahead of the rest of
their classmates, so this group of freshmen was likely to be an intelligent group of students.
However, there was also the possibility that the freshmens lack of maturity would influence
their ability to successfully complete a self-guided exploration activity, so I wanted to analyze
whether or not this would occur.
The graphs below show what percentage of freshmen/upperclassmen got each question
right, and what percentage got each wrong. Correct answers are represented by the darker color,
while incorrect answers are represented by the lighter color. The results for each subgroup were
as follows:

Post-Test: Upperclassmen

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Question Question Question Question

#1
#2
#3
#4
Incorrect Answer
Question Number
Correct Answer

Percentage of Upperclassmen

Percentage of Freshmen

Post-Test: Freshmen

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Question Question Question Question

#1
#2
#3
#4
Incorrect Answer
Question Number
Correct Answer

Post-Test: Freshmen vs. Upperclassmen

Freshmen
Upperclassmen
Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect
Question #1
8
0
17
3
Question #2
8
0
18
2
Question #3
8
0
20
0
Question #4
6
2
9
11

Geroche 8
These results show that the freshmen did indeed perform slightly better than the
upperclassmen. It is impressive that all of the freshmen got the first three questions right! And,
of all of the subgroups Ive discussed, the freshmen had the highest percentage of correct
answers to Question #4, which indicates that they were most likely to have finished the
exploration and been able to apply their knowledge about solving logarithmic equations. On the
other hand, the upperclassmen did not do particularly below average on any question, so while
there could have been the possibility that the slightly-advanced freshmens good scores were
skewing the class averages, this does not appear to be the case.
Based on this pre-test and post-test, I can tell that students very successfully learned what
e is, what the natural logarithm is, and how to calculate interest rates. They need a bit more time
to solidify their ability to consistently solve exponential and logarithmic equations, but that will
follow with just a bit more practice. In the future, I would make a few small changes to the
activity worksheet, based on the questions students frequently asked me during class. Also, I
would go back and reformat the quiz a bitthese students are used to taking quizzes on Google
Forms, but for any other students I would want the quiz to read a bit more clearly. Finally, I
might add a question between Question #3 and Question #4, asking students to simply add or
subtract two logarithms. This is knowledge that is needed to solve the equation in Question #4,
so technically I have already tested for it. However, adding a question to address this stepping
stone on the way to the answer to Question #4 would help me to determine what part of Question
#4 is tripping the students up, since many of them got Question # 4 wrong. Overall, I am quite
pleased with the growth these pre-test and post-test results show. I believe that these results are
proof enough to say that the exploration was successful.