Copyright 2006 by Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas. May not be reprinted unless permission is given by Dr....

Copyright 2006 by Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas. May not be reprinted unless permission is given by Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas.

Lincoln University

Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas, DeanSchool of Social Sciences and Behavioral Studies


MOTIVATING URBAN YOUTHTO STUDY MATHEMATICS,COMPUTER SCIENCE AND

SCIENCEBy

Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas, DeanSchool of Social Sciences and Behavioral Studies

Lincoln University


• Definition of Urban Youth

• Programs which have experienced success in motivating urban youth to study Mathematics, Computer Science, Science and/or Engineering.


•Strategies, Techniques and Methodologies which work in motivating Urban Youth to Study Mathematics, Computer Science, Science, Engineering.

•Names of African Americans who are mathematicians, scientists. (See Dr. Grant D.

Venerable’s Chapter – HANDOUT)


Panel consists of:

Grant D. Venerable, II, Ph.D. and M.S. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago, BS/BA from UCLA in Chemistry; Vice President of Academic Affairs at Lincoln University.

Abdulalim A. Shabazz, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, Ph.D. in Mathematics from Cornell University, MA from MIT and B.A. in 3 years from Lincoln University.


•Milford Greene, Ph.D. in Biology from Weslyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, MPH from Harvard and BA in Biology from Morehouse College; Professor of Biology and Director, Sponsored Programs and Continuing Education at Lincoln University.

John O. Chikwem, Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of the School of Mathematics and Science at Lincoln University. Ph.D. from Ohio University, Athens in Microbiology, MS from St. Andrews in Scotland, BA from AIBMS (Association of the Biomedical Institute of Biomedical Sciences).


Conclusion

Questions and Answers/Discussion

Date for subsequent session/partnership perhaps?


It is particularly fitting to share with you that we are excited about this opportunity, based on the research and best practices on how we believe we can and should entice all youth, particularly urban youth, to master and study mathematics, any of the sciences, engineering and/or computer science.


George Gagnon, Jr., who for the past 15-20 years has been working with students in urban schools and coaching their math teachers, who is presently the Pre-Engineering Director of the Center for Underrepresented Engineering students at the University of California, Berkeley, asks this question, “Why are some students learning math while others are not?” After a decade of supporting math education as a teacher educator, classroom coach and university researcher, he reports the following observations:


• Many math students were severely wounded by their early math instruction and don’t obtain the most basic levels of education required to become quantitatively literate. He asserts, “If we don’t do something differently, yet another generation will be lost.”

• Less than 1/3 of urban students in urban schools are learning enough math to complete STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) majors in college although only 1/3 of these successful students actually enroll in these majors.


• Of 659,000 minority high school graduates in 2003, only 26,000 had the requisite preparation in science and mathematics to qualify for admission to study engineering or technology at the college level. (Slaughter, 2005).

• Only students who learn the way we teach succeed in Math. Pen and paper manipulation of algorithms has changed little since the advent of common schools a century and a half ago.

• Students who think best through communication with others now struggle with math instruction, as do those who think best with their bodies and feelings since few patterns are taught this way.


•We have put aside math discourse and math models in favor of textbooks, examples and practice problems or worksheets.

•Some teachers believe only a few students are mentally qualified to learn math rather than expecting most students to learn math through calculus as 95% of the students in Japan do!

•We expect that almost 2/3 of our students will enter non-technical fields that involve only reading, writing and relating so they “don’t have to learn much math.”


• The seduction of consumer marketing, lottery fantasies, and inattention to and retirement planning are evidence enough that a lack of numeracy does matter (Ellis, 2001).

• Schools teach algorithms and properties in a vacuum of conceptual understanding about such fundamentals as place value, number relationships and basic operations, particularly practical applications in science or social studies.


• Elementary schools have few science classes and middle schools do not integrate math into science since making the equations and calculations is beyond many students’ functional math level.


•A respected veteran eighth grade science teacher reports that most of his students in an urban school cannot do the following:

- Easily weigh 5 grams of salt in a paper cup that weighs 9 grams.

- Calculate how much 50 milliliters of water weighs if one milliliter weighs one gram.

Given a rule with inches on one side and centimeters on the other, calculate how many centimeters are in an inch.


• These examples demonstrate that students lack conceptual understanding and practical applications for the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

•Teachers teach what they know and teach the way they were taught. Most elementary math teachers have little preparation beyond college algebra, a two-credit teacher education course in math methods or about 24 classroom hours of instruction. Middle school math teachers frequently have a major in a field other than math.


•One of the most difficult dilemmas is the use of calculators for simple computations. The more students can do without calculators, the better their math skills are. This scholar encourages students to use place value and number relationships to ground mental calculations in meaning rather than procedures.


Students are being wounded by current elementary math teaching. These are not self-inflicted injuries but rather wounds that result from poor curriculum, poor instruction and poor assessment in arithmetic.

Few of those who drop out of school or are incarcerated have more than rudimentary arithmetic skills and no understanding of algebra.


The math education community must create a health math learning culture and staunch the wounds.

- Need to heal the math wounds of current elementary teachers and improve the quality of preparation (Kenschaft, 2005).


Teachers in middle school try to triage these math wounds. Math schoolteachers sort or triage students into 3 categories: non-urgent, emergent/urgent and untreatable.


•In urban middle schools you will find 3 levels of math classes: college preparatory for students who are on track, who do their homework; grade level classes where students take the same math curriculum but for twice as long, either over 2 years rather than one in double period classes; remedial or “academy” classes where students have a regular class and a second class to revisit concepts they should have learned previously.


•Effective middle school math teachers report that most of the wounded students need to experience some success in mathematics to begin healing their wounds.


What Will Heal Math Learners?


•The National Science Foundation and many private foundations are putting funds into secondary math reform rather than math learning by elementary teachers.

•Elementary Teachers must improve their understanding of math and study the way students think and learn.


HOW?


•Via elementary math coaches, professional learning communities and commitment to curriculum reform focused on practical applications of operations with understanding.

•Steen (2003) observes the lack of progress in improving math performance as an indicator of widespread underestimation of the depth of understanding and intensity of effort required to teach mathematics effectively. A lack of respect for the complexity of the problem encourages quick fixes (smaller classes, higher standards, more tests, higher teacher salaries) that do not yield greater disciplinary understanding or pedagogical skill.


•Teachers Can Heal Math Wounds Through Diagnosis and Treatment

•Diagnose the extent and nature of individual wounds and treating each patient accordingly is a long term and expensive process but produces reliable results

•The most effective math teachers know this and work with students at lunchtime and after school to improve their understanding of math concepts.

•Curriculum reform must focus on how students are thinking and learning math.


•Programs such as Cognitively Guided Instruction and Developing Mathematical Ideas have been successfully engaging elementary math teachers in healing math wounds and conceptually understanding math for 2 decades or more.

•Efforts in the East Bay Area around UC Berkeley such as Diversity in Math Education, Leading for Excellence and Equity in Math and Science and Pre-engineering Partnerships. Academic acceleration academies are demonstrating that secondary teachers can heal math wounds more effectively than elementary teachers.


As teachers learn to understand and teach mathematics conceptually, pre-school children will learn patterns and counting. Elementary students will learn place value and operations; middle school students will learn algebra and geometry; and high school students will learn calculus. Then the majority of students, not only the privileged few, will succeed in learning mathematics.


Education Policy Must Include

Numeracy and Well as Literacy.


Education and Legislative policy makers must realize that the future of our ecology, technology and economy depend upon a highly educated workforce that can solve complex problems, relate with one another and communicate with colleagues throughout the world.


Math literacy must be elevated to the status of language literacy by showing each other and our children real world applications and working with adult learners in math the way we enroll newcomers in English classes. This approach would require policies that make literacy a foundation of learning the way oral and written communication are.


•Parents and Teachers would be supported to study math as adult learners.

•We risk losing another generation of urban youth to the street culture where they fight, injure and waste each other an enormous psychic, spiritual, and financial cost to our cities, indeed, to the whole society. When only upper and middle class youth have access to high quality mathematics, we all suffer the consequences. Math will continue to be the gatekeeper preventing a majority of public school students from equal access to an adequate, much less higher, education.


Most 3rd world, developing countries do a more effective job teaching their youth mathematics than we in the United States do.

Thus, our job is to heal the wounds of classroom teachers, parents and students who

think they cannot do Math or Science.


Just who are the urban students we need

and want to attract to the mathematics and

science fields?


•Black, not of Hispanic Origin: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.

•Hispanic: A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race


•Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii; the U.S. Pacific Territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Marinas; the U.S. Trust Territory of Palau; the islands of Micronesia and Melanesia; and the Philippines

•American Indian or Alaskan Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through affiliation or community recognition. (We are not likely to see Pacific Islanders and/or American Indians or Alaskan Natives in the eastern corridor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.)

This is not to exclude whites and others who attend urban schools.


Too often today, in order to maintain a positive self-identity, these minority students must take on an anti-school identity and resist the assimilationist

demands of the school (Deyhle, 1992; Ogbu, 1987).


As you know, we are more segregated in our urban schools today in 2006 than we were pre Brown v. Board of Education,

1954, 1955 and the 1964 Civil Rights Legislation.


Wegman refers to this phenomenon as the Resegregation Dilemma from which 2/3 of the

students exit these schools reading, writing, speaking, computing three to six grades below level.

As you know if you can’t read, write, speak, compute, critically think, you and I will never have

to worry about anyone taking our JOBS.

(See letter I wrote to Marjorie Blaze, Acting Chief of Teacher Certification for the Pennsylvania Department of Education –

HANDOUT.)


Over 2/3 of teachers in urban schools are not only uncertified, they haven’t even studied mathematics. Thus, we often have the “blind leading the blind.” It’s no wonder that less than 1.8% of all Ph.D.’s in the math and sciences do not come from our urban schools. More significantly is the absence of Urban Youth with credentials/teacher certification in Math

or the Sciences.


I have spoken to many students at multiple colleges and universities who are majoring in

teacher education in Pennsylvania and you can count on one hand the number of African

American, Latinos who are studying math and are excited about teaching math or science.


In fact, a large portion of those students, urban, suburban or rural who do well in math, a B or better, do not even consider teaching in our high schools, middle schools. Those with C averages in the math and sciences are often those who end up teaching, often by DEFAULT.


So what should we do about it?


First, we have to give our urban students a reason to study mathematics

and the sciences.


Many of our urban youth do not know that Philadelphia born and bred, Charles

Bridges, M.D., Ph.D. from Harvard University and MIT respectively

performed the open heart surgery on Senator Spector.


Dr. Bridges was the youngest student Black, White, Yellow, Red or Brown to

ever get accepted into Harvard’s School of Medicine. He’s Chief of Cardiac Surgery

at the University of Pennsylvania.


He’s Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. He often laughs at the fact that when

one of his “vanilla” colleagues, a cardiologist, recommends to one of his patients that he do the

surgery on him/her, he says when he visits the prospective patient with this “vanilla” colleague,

it is assumed that he is the orderly, not the recommended cardiologist.


Benjamin Carson, MD from the University of Chicago, the first surgeon to successfully separate

Siamese twins joined at the head at Johns Hopkins University relates a

similar story when he initially met the parents of the young ladies.


First he is very young looking like many of you who are here today, he is African American and they simply assumed that he couldn’t be the surgeon to whom these parents were referred. His book, These Gifted Hands is one I highly recommend to any Program you initiate for urban youth on your campus.


Mentoring and High Expectations with Support/Resources are Key Factors, Components to any Program for all

Youth, especially Urban Youth.


Programs that have been successful at motivating urban youth to pursue the

study of mathematics and science:


Never forget that we’ve had, as Admiral Richover, father of the Nuclear Navy, 5 decades of

Old Math

New Math

Math Reform

Math Standards

Math Wars


USA has a moral obligation to address the growing inequity in math learning between

students in communities of wealth and communities of poverty between suburban and urban students and between White and Asian

students and students of color.


Whatever the provocation, educators must change the way we have taught math for two generations for the majority of learners to actually learn math and obtain qualitative literacy!


U.S. Department of Education has funded multiple studies to get more

urban youth into the study of mathematics and science.


The Dymarski Study, Director and Senior Fellow at Mathematics Policy Research

Institute.

Performed the study within 120 schools within 40 school districts under the No Child Left Behind Act. The software package utilized in this study was SmartMath.

Result: Proven gains over classroom instruction for pre-Algebra level mathematics.


Power House Programs in the Study: Scholastic, Pearson and PLATO

CompuTaught, the creator of SmartMath and leading developer of computer based real estate education, has provided documentation of significant gains over traditional classroom instruction after using the SmartMath learning tool in less time than other well known software packages.


Those students who received SmartMath instruction scored consistently higher on nationally norm-referenced test, the Stanford 9 and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), as well as the Georgia Criterion Referenced Test (CRCT). The results revealed overwhelming improvement across all the different measures used, for both 5th and 6th graders, and for students at varying levels of performance in one of the toughest schools in Georgia – a rural, high-poverty, high-minority school with the highest dropout rate in the State.


At risk 6th grade students who used SmartMath increased their ITBS scores (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) a phenomenal 117%. SmartMath 6th graders scored 31% higher on ITBS than the students in the control group. SmartMath 6th grade students achieved a 46-52% decreased failure rate on the Georgia CRCT (Georgia Criterion Referenced Test) over the control groups. Gifted 5th graders who had the benefit of using SmartMath scored an astounding 4.8 grade levels higher on the Stanford 9 than students in the control group testing remarkably at a post-high school grade level.


The Heartland Institute Study entitled, “High Poverty and High-Minority Schools in California.”

•Direct Instruction vs. Indirect Instruction.


•Findings on both studies conducted by PRI (the Pacific Research Institute) and the Manhattan Institute Civic Report report that Direct Instruction/Teacher Centered Methodology works best for high-poverty, high-performing schools in California.


Continuation of Findings:

Findings on both studies PRI, the Pacific Research Institute and the Manhattan Institute Civic Report indicate that Direct Instruction/Teacher Centered methodology works best for high-poverty, high-performing schools in California.


How Teachers Teach matters!

The PRI study shows that schools using direct instruction prove teaching methods and curricula succeed even when confronted with the challenges of poverty and deprivation. Lance T. Isumi, author of PRI report, writes, “The next step should be to replicate their study in all underachieving schools.”


According to the Pacific Research Institute direct instruction was the only one of the methodologies found to improve student achievement in a 1999 American Institutes for Research Study comparing 24 different teaching methodologies. According to the PRI study, direct instruction also lays a foundation for success in high school and college.


A 1996 analysis of 34 separate studies comparing direct instruction to other teaching methodologies had similar findings, showing

direct instruction effective in improving student achievement.


Finding: In the 8 high-performing high-poverty schools, the PRI, Pacific Research Institute, report indicates that high expectations are the norm. Often teachers ask me after I’ve talked about the Rosenthal Effect (High Expectations) ‘How does one have high expectations when the students are poorly trained and have no grounded/solid mathematical and/or science skills? Here are the comments of two principals who participated in the study:


Principal Debbie Tate of Payne Elementary School believes all students can meet standards.

Dr. Norma Baker, principal of Hudnall Elementary School, is committed to having all students meet benchmarks even if they need extra help to do so. She advocates “High Expectations from her students!!


The general mindset among teachers in the Manhattan Institute Survey is somewhat different.


- Only ¼ of surveyed teachers place the greatest emphasis on accuracy of students’ answers.

- Only a minority of teachers regularly assigns vocabulary words and written exercises.

- Fewer than ½ of 4th grade teachers expect students to always spell correctly.


- Nearly 60% of 4th grade teachers do not base final grades on a “single, class-wide standard,” but instead base grades on individual abilities.

- 70% of 8th grade teachers permit the use of the calculator.


Jo Boaler’s Study on “How Urban High Schoolers Get Math”

Briefly, Jo Boaler made the following observations after working with three schools

in the Bay area in California. The 700 students in the study studied mathematics from 9th through 12th grade. The National Science Foundation supported the 5-Year

Project.


Three schools in the study are:

Railside – Urban schools with 77% Latino, African-American and Asian Pacific Islanders, initially achieved at a significantly lower levels than students at the two upper middle class affluent Bay Area schools. The other two Bay Area affluent schools’ students had always, before the intervention at Railside, performed significantly higher in Math than did Railside students. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation.


Results: Within two years, Railside students were significantly outperforming the students at the other

two schools in tests designed by the study.

By the junior year 54% of Railside students said they enjoyed math “all or most of the time,” compared to

29% of the students at the other schools. Furthermore, although white students at Railside

performed at higher levels than Latinos at the start of freshman year, this disparity disappeared by the end

of the sophomore year.


The study found no gender differences in performance in any tests the students took at any

level. Female students made up ½ of the advanced classes at Hilltop, 48% at Griendale and 59% at

Railside.

By 12th grade 41% of all of Railside students were taking calculus compared with 27% of seniors

at the other two schools.


Keith Devlin, a consulting professor in Mathematics, said “the results do not surprise him. Good teaching

is just not about teaching the tools, but teaching students how to use the tools.” “Learning math is about developing our mental capacity to a point [that] when faced with a new problem involving

mathematical thinking, we know about how to go about solving it. You can’t get away from drill, rote and practice, but then you have to develop the skills

for using the tools well!”


Boaler’s view, the greatest outcome is that Railside’s teaching methods are leaving lasting results. Out of 105 seniors interviewed at the end of the study, all said they wanted to pursue mathematics in college – compared with 67% of the students who learned traditional mathematics. Moreover, 39% of Railside students said they planned a future in mathematics compared to 5% of those from the other 2 schools. The mathematics teachers at Railside achieved something important that many other teachers can learn from – they gave students from disadvantaged backgrounds a great chance of success in life and taught them to love mathematics. That’s very important because there is a critical shortage of people who are mathematically qualified.


How Railside, the highly impoverished

Urban School, succeeded?


Students of mixed abilities were placed in classes together, while the students at Hilltop and Grandale split students into algebra, remedial algebra and geometry. Railside placed all students into heterogeneous algebra classes.

The teachers used an approach designed at Stanford called “complex instruction” to insure that group work succeeded while countering social and academic status differences.


•The teachers created working environments where many dimensions of mathematical work were valued allowing for several different paths to a solution.

•Students were given several ways to contribute to problem solving.

•Students were graded for asking good questions, rephrasing problems, explaining ideas, being logical, justifying methods and bringing different perspectives to a problem.


• Railside uses block scheduling, developing 90-minute long lessons for courses that last a half school year instead of a full academic year with hour-long classes.


The Escalante Project (Stand and Deliver)

• Escalante exclaims, “Yes, the barriers disadvantaged or minority students face are substantial, but it is the very possibility of their remaining trapped by them for an entire lifetime which requires that such students be urged to succeed in their academic studies.”


• Current research overwhelmingly supports a greater use of technology in the mathematics classroom and the integration of math with other subjects. These two measures are expected to motivate students and to help them see important linkages between math and the REAL WORLD.


MATH R US by Signer and Christie

Signer and Christie evaluated a year-long project called MATH R US (Microcomputer Adaptive Testing High Risk Urban Students) used in an urban high school that serves an at risk, predominantly black population with a high rate of absenteeism.


• In this Program, students were given a computerized diagnostic test once a week and spent the other daily class meetings working on computer-generated practice sheets. By the end of the year results indicated:


•Computer assisted instruction increases students’ motivation, self-confidence and self-discipline.

•In this study students engaged in less off-task behavior (less than 5% of observed computer class time).

•The students generated intense competition among themselves to perform well on tests.


•When they completed one with 100% accuracy, a graphic of a “hamburger” would appear on their computer screen. This was motivational and the students competed to see who would get the most “Hamburgers.”

•When using the computer, the students saw their teacher as an ally rather than an adversary. They reported the computer as fairer, easier, and more likeable than their teachers.


•Moreover, the use of computers gives students more ownership and responsibility over their learning.

•In contrast, students in the control setting typically listened to a lecture from their math instructor, helped work sample problems on the board and then were given worksheets to do individually at their seats. Student interaction was discouraged, but the teacher had to monitor socialization and get the students back on-task.


On the other hand, student interaction in the computer group was permissible and was almost

always centered on learning. Student involvement with the computer included creation of:


Hypermedia Artifacts in Math and Science

HyperCard Stacks created by Algebra Students include the commutative, associative, and distributive properties as well as adding polynomials and solving, simplifying and rearranging formulas algebraically. The students learned to work together in teams.


Sharon Dugdale’s “The Spreadsheet Project – K-12 Teachers Use of a Spreadsheet for Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving.


The Spreadsheet – In Sharon Dugdale’s article “K-12 Teachers Use of a Spreadsheet for Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving,” she advances the idea that having students create spreadsheet models to maximize area, to solve linear equations, to produce both numeric and graphical solutions for quadratic equations, to provide both graphical and tabular solutions to distance-rate-time problems that have travelers leaving different places at different speeds and meeting somewhere in between, to simulate population growth, to compute possible paths between two places on a grid, to compare linear and exponential growth, and to interpret data from surveys. As with the computer activities previously described, the use of spreadsheets enables students to play a more active role in their own learning process and encourages creativity and autonomy.


• When working with under-achieving students, the models can be adapted to fit their particular interests.

• Since making money is a concern to most teens, a comparison of two daily allowance schemes would probably pique interest in the classroom.


• Students would be able to be asked to compare which option is better: Receiving $10 a day per month or receiving a penny on the first day of the month and then each day doubling the number of pennies earned the previous day. A spreadsheet model for this problem could calculate and graph each day’s income and the running total of each. This could lead to an interesting analysis of linear and exponential growth and when each is more profitable.


• Findings: The Spreadsheet Activity significantly improved the urban students success and love of math.


The Kay Tolliver Mathematics Programs

• Get the students “hooked” to the point that they anxiously look forward to coming to and participating in class.


• To present the whole body of mathematics as a unified subject and to emphasize relationships between math and the real world. Tolliver replaced the textbook in her classes with software packages.


EQUALS Project – (Gender Equity Attrition) Conducted by faculty at the University of

California, Berkeley. • Grant from U.S. Department of Education• Better link home and school. Courses for

parents are offered in a school, church, library or museum, or community center and meet for 6 weeks.


The PUMP Algebra Curriculum. The Pittsburgh

Urban Mathematics Project A collaborative effort between teachers in

the public schools and the Anderson Research Group: To make high school algebra accessible to all students through the use of situational curriculum materials and an intelligent computer based tutoring system. The study worked to represent real world situations with equations and then to interpret those equations with tables and graphs.


• Findings: 25% more urban youth selected high level mathematics classes as a result of the PUMP Program.


The Interactive Mathematics Program funded by the National

Science Foundation.

This Interactive Mathematics Program curriculum consists of four to eight week units that are each organized around a central problem or theme.


• Dr. Phillip Uri Treisman writes, “The United States has increasingly failed to provide mathematics in a way that “hooks” urban youth.


The Phillip Uri Treisman Study

• Philip Uri Treisman’s Experiment with 20 African American males and 20 Chinese Americans.

• Dr. Treisman spent a minimum of six hours per day to study each cohort: African Americans and Chinese.


• Over an 18-month period Treisman accompanied the students to the library, their dormitory rooms and their homes in hope that he might see first hand how they went about learning and doing review problems that, at least on their first try, they could not solve.

• Cooperative vs. competitive study habits

• Use of tutors in a productive and creative manner.


Pamela Trotman Reid and Sally Roberts’ Mathematics Problem for Potentially Talented At

Risk Adolescent Girls.

Program is aimed to build mathematical confidence, skills and conceptual understanding by integrating mathematics. Program targeted seventh-grade urban girls from public and private schools.


Qualitative data from the girls indicate that participants demonstrated greater confidence in their mathematical ability and increased mathematics achievement after the program. Qualitative data confirmed these findings and supported the contention that multiple factors play a role in fostering girls’ interest in studying mathematics and science. By high school, girls and minority students, to a much greater extent than boys and white students, self select out of higher-level “academic track” mathematics and science courses such as calculus and chemistry (Clewell, Anderson and Thorpe, 1992). Gender gaps and ethnic differences also persist through high school on “high stakes” tests such as the SAT and statewide achievement tests.


The National Science Foundation issued a report in 2000 that examined participatory changes in these fields. That year, while females comprised 46% of the total labor force, only 22.8% of all scientists and engineers were women. Further, women were concentrated in the life and social sciences, with females comprising 63% of all psychologists and 42% of all biologists, compared with 10% of physicists and astronomers and 9% of engineers (National Science Foundation, 2000).


Intervention Domains

• Role models and university student mentors.

• Curricular developments

• Linking mathematics’ activities to the Social Sciences research methods.


Activities for Mathematics for Girls • Activities for Mathematics for Girls were

held across ten consecutive Saturdays on the campus of a major research institution.

• Parents were responsible for transporting girls to the Program site, where they received snacks and lunch free of charge.


• During the program the participants used a laptop computer laboratory and toured several campus sites.

• Each Saturday the Program activities included mathematics and scientific reasoning skills, statistical concepts, data literacy and analysis and the exploration of math-related careers.


• Mentors were responsible for designing and teaching mini skill-building lessons for their team of girls based on the results of mathematics skills pre-tests for their individual group of girls.

• A typical day began at 9:00 a.m. and concluded at 2:30 p.m. and incorporated both whole group and teamwork.


• The course of study for the 10-week session reflected the vision for school mathematics articulated in the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000) for data analysis, communication, and representation for grades 6-8.


• The Program established a collaborative environment through the use of small groups and single sex participants.

• The 7th grade girls and mentors worked in research teams that comprised two university students and three to four seventh graders.


• Teams worked together to complete a research project investigating a topic of interest.

• The project included designing a survey, collecting data, and using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques.

• The Program organizers also brought senior level researchers and female scientists to talk with girls and provide role models and introduction to career options.


RESULTS

• Mathematical confidence and skills were significantly increased from pre-test to post-test.


• Their scores on the mathematical skill measure increased almost 4 points. In addition to the significant increase across participants, data disaggregated by groups (low, medium, high) provide evidence that girls at every level demonstrated gains during the Program. More than 50% of the girls achieved a score that was above the maximum pretest score for that group.


Results

• No change in educational goals and career aspirations. The failure to find an increase in aspiration is due to a ceiling effect caused by high–re-test scores.


• The girls’ journals report also indicate that the commitment to education and career goals expressed by participants included further study of mathematics.

• One girl wrote: I’m not sure what I really want to be, but I know I really want to do something that involves Math and Science.


• Parents reported not only that the Program increased their daughters’ perception of their mathematical abilities and confidence in Math and Science, but they also believe the Go-Girl experience translated into their daughters’ ongoing academic prowess.


• Journal responses support expectations that the mentoring relationship contributed to increased mathematics confidence and competence for the girls. The participants identified both the instrumental (specific skill building) and the relational (social, emotional) mentoring aspects of the Program.


• They identified their mentors as friends. Mentors provided social support, advice about school, friendship, preparation for college and careers – also provided emotional support.


Journal responses also indicate that participants were overwhelmingly positive about the small collaborative group-learning environment, with 67 of the 745 (90.5%) participants characterizing it as beneficial.

• Perceived benefits of the Program.

• Fosters equal participation.

• Encourages the sharing of opinions.

• Encourages the sharing of opinions.

Mathematical confidence and skills were significantly increased from pre-test to post-test.


The Morgan-Potsdam Model/The Potsdam Miracle

This is a name given to a method of teaching mathematics developed by Dr. Clarence F. Stephens at Morgan State University and refined at the State University of NY College at Potsdam. Dr. Uri Treisman of the University of California at Berkeley independently discovered a few of Dr. Stephens’ techniques in what is referred to as the Group Method. Dr. Stephens earned his B.S. from Johnson C. Smith, MA, Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.


• From 1947-62 he discovered and developed the keys to his method. Math Education at its Best: The Potsdam Model (MEAIB) by Dilip Datta.

• Dr. Stephens’ model included establishing the most favorable conditions he could for students to learn and teachers to each.


• He developed a method for developing the mathematical potential of students at Potsdam which worked well for Morgan and in NSF Summer Institutes for Secondary Teachers of Math.

• Formed a team of teachers/faculty members to work with him to teach freshmen and sophomores and the first year of graduate study mathematics, “How to Read Mathematics Literature with Understanding and to Become Independent Learners.”


• Faculty selected for the team had to have a warm relationship with the students, strong loyalty to the Department and the College.

• The team was informally formed by the way courses were assigned without telling faculty they were members of the team.

• Solid students served as tutors.


• SUNY Potsdam in 1985 had 4000 students. In 1985 the college graduated 184 mathematics majors, the 3rd largest number of any institution in the United States. This represented a quarter of the degrees given by SUNY Potsdam that year and over 40% of the institution’s honor students were math majors.

• The Potsdam Miracle was accomplished by raising standards and providing a supportive environment.


STRATEGIES, TECHNIQUES, METHODOLOGIES WHICH MOTIVATE,

BASED ON THE DATA, URBAN YOUTH TO PURSUE A CAREER FIELD WHICH REQUIRES THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE

BEYOND THE RUDIMENTARY LEVELS INCLUDE:


• A solid mentoring program. Math students with other students, faculty, community folks who have competence in math and/or science, love it and love young people.

• Link the study of mathematics and science to the students’ everyday lives. Do not present math and science classes devoid of the students’ everyday lives.


• Get excellent teachers to teach math and science. Math and science teachers in K-12 and the College level should share their success and not so successful stories about their math instruction.

• Model excellent, creative, innovative teaching methodologies.

• Use varied classroom instructional techniques commensurate with the content you’re teaching.


• The Math, Science, Computer Science faculty should regularly discuss what is happening in the Science and Mathematics, Computer Science Methods Courses taught by the Education Department.


Give Pre and Post tests in all math and science classes. Know what your students know and do

not know.

• Use the results to modify the University’s math and science curricula. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

• Develop a curriculum that meets the needs of underachieving math and science students.


Engage parents whenever, wherever possible in the involvement of their children in math and

science classes.

• Work on getting grants for parents to attend classes that will raise their level of mathematical skills.


Make tutoring available to students around the clock and offer points for students who participate in tutoring programs. Get feedback from tutor on

attitude, skill level, attendance and performance of students.


• Start exposing students to math and science in kindergarten and all subsequent years.

• Relate the study of math and science to the study of the social sciences and the humanities.


Provide support for both the cognitive and affective domains to the students.

• Teachers must demonstrate warmth for their students. You are “on their case” because you want them to do well.


• Teachers, of course, must be knowledgeable about the environment, culture from which their students come. Teachers should be available for students during irregular hours. (Graduate students, peer tutors, etc.)


Creation of a working, fun classroom

environment. • Greet the students when they enter, leave

the classroom.

• Ask them about their career objectives, goals and then ask how they plan to achieve them.

• Challenge them to focus on what one must do to achieve his/her goal.


• Enthusiasm from the Teacher about Math and Science.

• Drilling of basic mathematical concepts paired with discussion.

• Offer general and selective positive reinforcement.

• Use choral responding.


• Make use of the pattern drill in the beginning, middle and end of class.

• Students will maintain a journal on how they feel about instruction, concepts, etc.

• Encourage divergent and convergent questioning.

• Scheduling of classes is a PRIORITY.


ATTENTION!!

Math Gap Grows for Minorities/Urban Youth


• The difference in math scores between white and black seventh graders grew from 17.9 to 31.3 percentage points during that 8-year period.

• Latino students from 17.3 to 29.3 percentage points. (Pennsylvania)


• American Indians from 17.1 to 23.8 percentage points. Overall, just one quarter of minority 7th graders statewide passed the math section of this year’s WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning). (State of Washington)


• The Math gap has increased over the past eight years for all minority groups on the fourth, seventh and 10th grade WASL with the exception of Asian students and a negligible gain among sophomores of American Indian descent.


• The gap between black and white teenagers increased from 35.9 to 44.2 percentage points over the past 8 years and jumped from 32.7 to 47.7 percentage points between black and white 7th graders between 1998 and 2005.


Contributors to the Gap Between Indigent Minority Students and Middle

Class Students


• A 2001 Education trust survey found that 63% of high school classes in Washington State were taught by teachers who majored in the subjects they were teaching, but the number dropped to 52% in schools with high numbers of children living in poverty.


• David Marshab, an Associate Professor at Seattle University, said the highly sequential nature of math, which requires mastering new skills each step of the way, makes it easy to fall behind children’s differing levels of education. When they start school, their varying rates of development, the support they get at home and the quality of the teachers, he said, all combine to push some children along while others fall behind.


• Seismic shift in teaching strategies that today’s math standards require.

• Chronic under funding Washington spends 87% of the national average of per-pupil funding, putting the state 44th in the nation, although Washington ranks 6th nationally in terms of education funding raised at the same level versus federal funding and local levies.


• The Reading First initiative, part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 has allocated more than $3 billion nationally to provide research-based professional development for teachers with the aim of improved reading instruction in K-3rd grade. Results showed significant improvement. The racial gap closed at 51 schools that participated in a pilot.


• No comparable math initiative.

• No standardized curriculum.

• Absence of appropriate professional development opportunities for classroom math teachers at various stages of their careers.


• Absence of intensive training and coaching required for effective math instruction.

• Need for Powerful Teaching – “You give a kid two years with a very powerful teacher, and that will mitigate against any family condition.” “You give kids two years of poor teaching and it puts them at risk for the rest of their school-aged life! (So says Stephen Fink, Executive Director of the University of Washington’s Center for Education Leadership.


CONCLUSION


Where Do We Go From Here? We Have the Power!

Copyright 2006 by Dr. Judith A.W. Thomas. May not be reprinted unless permission is given by Dr....

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