How Kids Do The Math

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So what's with all this math reform anyway? a character on Seinfeld might ask, and frankly, some parents are asking that question, too. Things are changing in the way that mathematics is taught. Not only does the teacher behave much differently in the instructional role than when today's adults were in school, there's a new and unfamiliar vocabulary.

This worries some folks who are concerned that reforms won't teach kids as well as the methods under which they learned. But—truth to tell—very few parents and other adults have had a chance to really observe a math classroom, seeing with their own eyes just what this "reform" business means in daily practice.

Now they can.

At no charge, residents of the Northwest can borrow a new 20-minute video called How Do You Spell Parallel? The video can be shown at parent or civic-group meetings, or it can be viewed at home with the family. Produced by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's Mathematics and Science Education Center, the video takes viewers into three middle school classrooms to see what math is really like there, and to learn how current approaches improve teaching and student learning.

Classrooms used to look something like this: A teacher talks; students listen. They work alone at their desks. Today, however, the students are expected to participate actively, figuring out things, talking about math with each other and the teacher. The students are expected to understand the concepts they are learning; it's not good enough to memorize a formula without understanding what it means. Teaching is no longer focused only on rote learning. Skills are often taught in the context of complex problems rather than worksheets and computation drills alone, says Laboratory writer Jennifer Stepanek who worked on the development and production of How Do You Spell Parallel?

Being good in math was always a good idea, but students who didn't get it and couldn't do it could slip by and still get a pretty decent job. Increasingly that's no longer the case. Technology is quickly changing the workplace, and more and more jobs require skills in algebra, geometry, measurement, probability, and statistics. Stepanek points to research that says 15 years ago a typical worker with a four-year college degree earned 38 percent more than a high school graduate—today the earning gap is 69 percent! And students of all income levels who take higher-level math and science courses are more likely to go to college. Those who have strong math and science backgrounds are more likely to be employed and earn more than those who have not, even if they have gone to college. Algebra is the "gateway" course to advanced math and science in high school, yet most students don't take it in middle school.

To borrow the How Do You Spell Parallel? video, write to the NWREL Mathematics Science and Education Center, 101 S.W. Main, Ste. 500, Portland, OR 97204, e-mail to math_and_science@nwrel.org, or telephone (503) 275-0651. Be sure to include your name, address, phone number, and the name of the video. Your only obligation is to send it back.

This column is provided as a public service by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, a nonprofit institution working with schools and communities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.