News Highlights

Math Academy helps area teachers prepare students for higher test standards

Area high school math teachers are polishing their skills at a Math Academy intended to improve students' test scores as standards become more rigorous.

2008-07-09
By Tanner Kent, Free Press Staff Writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 7/9/2008]

Amy Wallin has no problems with math.

She's a math teacher in the Alden-Conger School District, working mostly with juniors and seniors. Phrases like "linear regression" and "correlation coefficients" roll off her tongue quite easily, and she is the team leader for her district's secondary mathematics department.

She even teaches algebra at a nearby community college.

So why was Wallin one of a handful of area math teachers attending a state-funded math academy on Tuesday?

"There's a lot of pressure for math teachers," said Wallin. "It's scary with all the high-stakes testing."

The Region IX Math Academy held Tuesday and today — as well as later this month — on the Minnesota State University campus is one of nine established this summer by the Minnesota Department of Education. The academies are held throughout the state and are focused on helping math teachers align their curriculum with new, and more rigorous, state standards.

In 2007, state officials revised the math proficiency standards to better reflect the growing need for math skills in the job market.

In 1999, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that motion picture and recreation services were among the fastest growing industries of the previous decade. Advertising, public relations and other media-related sectors were booming. Mortgage brokers and credit lenders were in steep demand.

Now, the BLS's top 20 list is populated with medical technicians, computer systems analysts, research scientists and engineers of all shape and size.

The one thing they all have in common is math.

"As math becomes more rigorous and more critical, we don't want students to not have success and just give up," said Kitty Foord, MSU's coordinator of professional development and coordinator of the Region IX academy. "We don't want to hear students say, ‘I'm just not good at math.'

"Deep down, we're all mathematicians."

State standards now mandate proficiency in algebra for eighth-graders, and in advanced algebra and trigonometry for juniors and seniors.

That means school districts have to align their math curriculum now so that today's elementary math learners can transition smoothly into the more complicated concepts. And that means students can no longer hide from math.

"Teachers need to teach math so that every student can access the material," Foord said. "Students aren't going to learn something just because a teacher says they'll need it some day."

And for teachers, that means making math more than just equations and algorithms.

So, in addition to receiving help with curriculum alignment, teachers at the academy also learned a few ways to take math beyond numbers. They practiced a lab on bungee-jumping and had a chance to network ideas with other teachers — which is no small opportunity for teachers like Wallin who come from small districts.

"It's easy in a small school district to kind of do your own thing," Wallin said. "The chance to share ideas and establish contacts with other math teachers is invaluable."

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