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Oct. 6, 2006

Methods for Teaching Math

Math instructors at community colleges face an uphill battle by many measures: the U.S. Department of Education says that fewer than half of high school graduates are prepared for college-level math and science, high school test scores in math have barely budged since the 1970s and American students rank a sorry 24th out of 29 developed nations for mathematical problem-solving skills. Two-year colleges — which attract higher numbers of students needing remedial education than their four-year counterparts — bear the brunt of the challenge of getting students up to speed.

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With these bleak realities as its backdrop, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges released a report Thursday, “Beyond Crossroads: Implementing Mathematics Standards in the First Two Years of College.” The document offers practical suggestions to help faculty members and administrators “meet students where they are,” as the association’s president, Kathy Mowers, said.

The report offers no-nonsense methods and tactics designed to guide faculty and administrative decision-making processes in five main areas: student learning and the learning environment, assessment of student learning, curriculum and program development, instruction and professionalism.

“Beyond Crossroads” offers a set of proposed actions in support of each recommendation listed. For instance, the document’s recommendation that students, faculty and support staff understand the influence of students’ attitudes toward learning mathematics and employ strategies to alleviate anxiety is accompanied with a list of suggested faculty actions that include a need to: be aware of diverse mathematics backgrounds , answer questions and explain material, assign and provide feedback on homework assignments, and use multiple assessment measures.

Suggested steps that departments or institutions can take regarding student attitudes include offering mathematics and study skills workshops, providing a sufficient number of qualified, well-trained tutors and providing training for counselors to support students’ math anxiety.

Judy Ackerman, the immediate past president of the two-year math group, said instructors can bring the report to college administrators to point out ways they can improve: “This is how we should be teaching math,” Ackerman said. “These are the changes we need to make.”

William Steenken, a consulting engineer for GE Aviation and a member of the National Advisory Committee for “Beyond Crossroads,” said the report will help “make good teachers great” and will be particularly helpful to part-time instructors, who taught 44 percent of math courses at two-year colleges in 2005, according to the report. “We need to provide guidance to adjunct faculty,” Steenken said, pointing out that many work full-time in fields unrelated to teaching.

Electronic resources accompanying the document will be available online beginning November 2, after the report is distributed at the math association’s annual conference in Cincinnati. Other implementation recommendations outlined in the report include the need for faculty to engage in continuing professional development, integrate technology in the classroom and incorporate skills that students will need in the work place into technical and career math courses.

— Elizabeth Redden

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Comments

Mathematics

Thomas, whilst I believe that knowledge of tables and certain facts in Mathematics are important, surely developing understanding is the key. It has been shown in many studies in England and across the world that the key to good teaching and learning is assessment for learning. Assessing where a student is, using good questioning skills to promote classroom discussion, and aid assessment and testing of knowledge in the plenary (the last part of the lesson). ‘Inside the black box and ‘beyond the black box’ are two articles worth reading. (Wiliam and Black).At present I am researching ‘metacognition’ in mathematics and the effects it has on the learning of students. I think this is a key approach to the learning of mathematics.Steve Fletcher OU

Steve Fletcher, Mr at The Open University England, at 2:50 pm EDT on June 30, 2007

Leveraging other initiatives

Perhaps the authors of the report, and those who wish to improve math teaching, should reach out to programs that have the same goals in the K-12 world. I’m thinking particularly of the Dana Center at UT-Austin, whose work on forming collaborative networks of math teachers shares many of the goals this report advocates, and has already demonstrated significant gains for the students of the state—at a cost which is almost an order of magnitude (10x, since this is an article about math issues :-) less than the cost of commercially provided curricula and support content.

http://www.utdanacenter.org/

I’m not plugging the Dana Center as such: I think their results are impressive, but for all I know there are six other groups out there doing even better. The larger point is that both high school and 2-year college teachers could benefit from seeing the commonalities in their situations and objectives, and pooling their needs and insights to improve their skills and outcomes. If Dana shows anything, it shows that there is strength in both numbers and diversity, when that strength is properly harnessed.

CJ, at 8:15 am EDT on October 6, 2006

Aprrehensive

I skimmed through the report and it seems to be long on generalities and short on details. Maybe I’m just missing something. One part of the report that is troubling is the amount of attention given to learning styles. Given that there is little credible evidence that teaching a student within their style improves student learning, and the difficulty most learning styles inventories have with reliability and validity,why would a report such as this spend so much time on it. I also did not see any discussion on other strategies such as having students practice skills to the point of mastery which has shown more promise at the K-12 than a pedagogy based upon learning styles.

The report seems to be a rehash of any given publication put out by the National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM). Unfortunately the NCTM and the constructivist pedagogy they espouse have not helped in improving math instruction in recent years.

thomassowellfan, at 9:25 am EDT on October 6, 2006

I like Thomas’ approach.But missing in all this is a discussion of the administative context — poor instructors peddling yet another report to their unresponsive overlords, another plea that tries to get the admins attention, will continue to get nowhere.

What this means is that learning theory always needs to be understood as a kind of organizational learning — in its total context — one that doesn’t just focus on student outcomes from one class, but one that is capable of seeing that outcome as part of a series of math learning experiences, starting in grammar school.

JK, at 10:25 am EDT on October 6, 2006

Learning Styles vs. Mastery

Thomas:

As an observer skeptical about the learning styles bandwagon but uninformed re. research, I would like to know of studies comparing learning style-adjusted vs. mastery instruction by discipline. Thanks.

karl

karl, at 6:35 am EDT on October 7, 2006

Studies?

I am wondering what people who teach k-12 are saying. I am very suspicious of studies because they might not be considering all of the factors. Anyone here teach or recently taught k-12?

Jerry, at 9:00 am EDT on October 8, 2006

Beyond Crossroads

I would welcome a summary of today’s teaching methods to compare with those offered by “Beyond Crossroads".

William G. “Bill” Weppner, Associate Professor;TMATYC President at Southwest Tennessee Community Coll., at 1:45 pm EDT on October 9, 2006

Isn’t that what We Do

These reports imply that we’re insensitive and hardheaded, doggedly sticking to the tradition of the one-way fits all in mathematics. I haven’t seen this in the classroom. It is not in mine. I continue to listen and relate to students the mathematics in a variety of ways. I affirm their creativity and conceptual understanding even if it might not be a direct way as I see it. I have taught in K-12. These mandates have been in that arena as well for many years. Can we accept that we have reached a limit as instructors? Now to appreciably move ahead some other stakeholders need to move toward their limits.

Jennifer Phan, at 7:00 pm EDT on October 13, 2006

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