On the Job

As U.S. students continue to lag in their math skills, when compared to students from across the globe, the long-term economic stability of the United States may be in jeopardy.

In a special 2009 supplement to The Condition of Education, it was reported that in math, U.S. 15-year-olds’ scores now lag behind those of 31 countries.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded to the report by saying, “These results show that for us to stay competitive and move forward we have to get our students ready for global competition.”

The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel from the U.S. Department of Education noted that an individual’s success in math provides additional college and career options as well as increased prospects for future income.

While careers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are “plentiful, well-paying, challenging,” according to a report in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the explanations for the continuing math achievement gap are varied. The AMS report notes, for instance, that many U.S. students do not participate in mathematics because of the social stigma attached.

Another difficulty highlighted in the report is the mathematics preparation of teachers, which The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel concluded must be strengthened to improve teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom.

Innovation adding up
But even before these latest findings, educators around the country have been working to help students achieve in math.

Math Circles is an outreach initiative, backed by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), that brings mathematicians and mathematical scientists into contact with students and teachers after school or on weekends to work on interesting problems or topics in mathematics. The goal is to get the students excited about mathematics as they participate in real-world problem-solving.

Dr. David Auckly, an associate director at MSRI who also works on the organization’s outreach programs, including Math Circles, said that in Eastern Europe, for example, students practice math as an after-school activity as they would band or football. He sees Math Circles as one way to encourage that sort of interest and enthusiasm.

The 2008–09 San Francisco Math Circle (SFMC) included 41 teachers and 365 students, with an average of 96 students and 17 teachers attending the program weekly. And the effects are exponential—the 41 teachers who attended SFMC, for example, influenced at least 2,200 students when they returned to the classroom.

Dr. Brandy Wiegers, coordinator for the National Association of Math Circles, explained that SFMC exemplifies how Math Circles can support teachers in helping students with their math skills/achievement. There are at least 60 other programs across the country in 20 different states that are striving to meet this same goal.

In an external evaluation of SFMC, one teacher-participant commented that Math Circles provided an extracurricular program that gave access to math enrichment activities for students at any level. And on the other side of the equation: One student interviewed said that Math Circles made math fun and provided new ways of learning.

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Posted by Purplebird, 11-07-2009 I currently teach math to seventh grade students. I have to disagree with hmaia. I don't think that requiring middle school math teachers to be math majors will solve anything. I am not a math major, but I still can teach my students how to do long division and multiplication. You don't have to be a math major and able to show mastery of math at an advanced level to be able to teach middle school math! I had to do that when I graduated from college. I feel that the WAY that mathematics is taught at the elementary and middle school levels is the major problem. Students are taught a new concept, they practice what they have learned for a day or two, are tested on the concept, and then they move on to something new. Rarely are the previous concepts revisited or linked to the new concepts. Oh, I realize that occasionally, a former concept may appear in the form of a question or two on a quiz or test, but students have gotten in the habit of being able to forget what they have previously learned after they are tested on it. Their mantra has become learn it, get tested on it, then forget it. I think that the math program needs to be revamped so that students are continually required to use their previous knowledge. All the basic concepts in mathematics (measurement, probability, algebra, geometry, etc.) should be linked and require a lot of repetition. (I realize that this would be a MAJOR overhaul to the way that math curriculum is currently designed and taught.)

Posted by hmaia, 11-05-2009 If you look at the results of PISA and TIMMS, the gap starts in middle school. As high school math teacher, I have noticed students come to Algebra 2 not knowing long division (you have to reteach before polynomial division), cannot do any multiplication problem without a calculator, fractions knowledge is a disaster,etc, etc. Their problem solving skills are very poor or non existing, and most hate mathematics. I believe the root of the problem lies in middle school. Teachers of mathematics in middle school are not required to have a math major, quite a few are scared of word problems, and the students start getting discouraged and unmotivated at this level. This occurs when their stage of brain development is at a crucial stage and we are failing to present mathematics to them in a way that is meaningful and engaging. By the time they get to high school the damage is already done, and it becomes almost impossible to catch up. School mandates that a high school curriculum be taught, but prerequisites are not there for the more advanced courses so we are facing a catch-22 situation. For high school teacher certification a teacher is require to show mastery of subject matter at an advanced level, and I feel that a middle school teacher should be subject to the same requirement.

Posted by Norcross Schools, 10-31-2009 I agree with jsmoritz. But, I believe there is a general complacency that has developed from a superior economy in the U.S., due to a more free market approach (at least until now). If we removed all the distractions that get in the way of educational basics, we could get much deeper into key subject education...including math.

Posted by jsmoritz, 10-31-2009 Speaking only from my own experiences in working with middle school students, I don't believe that American students will make any further advances in mathematics unless we start requiring students to memorize basic math facts that provide the foundation for both learning and understanding. Requiring young children to memorize the basic math facts is a thing of the past. When students come to middle school, they can barely do basic division facts, let alone long division. Instead, we've tried to make math fun and applicable to real life situations. Memorizing isn't fun, just give students calculators. When they get to middle school, a real life application problem that would ordinarily take less than thirty seconds to solve, takes two or more minutes. Where is the fun in that? Along with memorization of math facts, there needs to be a depth of understanding that can only come from repeated exposure to the types of problems that we want them to master. Make the exposure real life, make it fun, but move it from a student's short term to long term memory, because right now many stdents are not retaining information from one day to the next let alone from one year to the next.

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