Teachers now the latest target for math tutors
SAUGUS -- In the sunny library of an elementary school, Janis Cataldo played with pennies and styrofoam cups, trying to unravel a math equation. Her teacher told her to pretend the cups and coins were numbers and variables, an easier way for 11- and 12-year-olds to grasp early algebra.
But Cataldo is no middle school student. She is 57 years old, with 17 years of teaching under her belt. As children chased one another in the yard outside the library, she cracked word problems as part of a new back-to-school goal in Massachusetts: pumping up teachers' math skills.
With thousands of Massachusetts students heading back to class this week and next, elementary and middle school teachers in nearly a dozen mid-sized urban and suburban school systems are learning how to teach math with more confidence. Cataldo was one of dozens of teachers enrolled in a summertime math ''boot camp" run by Lesley University and Mass Insight Education.
''I need strengthening," said Cataldo, a sixth-grade math teacher who this fall will be a math coach at two Revere public schools. ''I've been stuck in sixth-grade math. I don't remember calculus, trigonometry, high-level math. If I know the high-level math, it's easier to teach the lower-level math."
She added with a laugh: ''It's been almost 40 years since high school, when I did all that."
Universities, with help from businesses, are leading the effort in the Commonwealth with an eye toward math in middle schools, when scores tend to dip. For too long, college officials say, they have left math training to teacher education programs that focused on how to teach, not what to teach.
Students need teachers who can handle -- and of course, teach -- tougher math than in the past. Students have to solve complicated word problems in class and the MCAS test -- problems that often require reading, writing, computing, and explaining answers. Teachers say that middle school math is getting harder, as schools encourage more eighth-graders to take algebra instead of waiting until high school. The modern economy demands sharper math and technology skills than it did a few decades ago.
So state education officials have issued the call to school systems, businesses, and universities: They must play their part in training teachers who don't know enough math, or who don't feel comfortable with the subject.
Nationally, Massachusetts frequently tops the nation in math scores. Its fourth- and eighth-graders typically rank in first or second place in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test given in all 50 states.
But state education officials say they worry about the 33 percent of eighth-graders who failed the 2003 math MCAS test; the passing rate has barely budged in three years. Employers say they want to groom a home-grown workforce, leery of drops in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering.
''Math is a big issue for two reasons," said Glenn Stevens, a Boston University math professor who oversees the university's Focus on Mathematics project. ''First, it's one of those subjects that is central to everything students will do later in college and in their careers -- science and technology, business and finance. Second, American students continue to struggle in mathematics compared to their peers in other countries."
BU's program, funded by the National Science Foundation, is one of two major statewide initiatives. BU and the Education Development Center in Newton hope to boost the math prowess of 250 teachers in five communities this year through workshops and seminars. Lesley and Mass Insight Education, meanwhile, are running programs for 350 teachers this year.
Businesses also are helping: From its Hudson office,
Much of the attention falls on teachers like Cataldo, who have taught math for years but need refresher courses.
''We take elementary teachers and turn them into mathematicians," said Kenneth I. Gross, a Lesley math and education professor who also heads Vermont's initiative for its math teachers. ''If you have a fourth-grade reading teacher, do you want them to have read Dick and Jane, or Shakespeare, Joyce, the masters?"
Teachers say they want a little of both -- solid background in the subject, for confidence, and the know-how to communicate math to children. During the courses, Gross leads teachers through math concepts, then coaxes them to use what they learned to create word problems for students.
Gross wrote on the white board: 3 + (-8) as an answer. ''What's the question?" he asked.
The ideas spilled forth: Joe had $3. He lost an $8 bet. How much is Joe worth? Other teachers volunteered questions that dealt with golf, snowfall, or football.
Other times, the topics stretched into the arcane, and teachers' eyes glazed over. They spent more than 40 minutes on the reasons numbers can't be divided by zero -- and how to explain that to inquisitive students. The atmosphere was collegial and easy-going, so teachers felt comfortable admitting what they cannot say in front of students: math is not their strong suit.
Ed Nazzaro, a sixth-grade English teacher in the Revere public schools, said he no longer will feel shy about challenging students on math, even though he hasn't taken a math class since his junior year of high school.
Revere schools have ''math Fridays," when all teachers, no matter what the subject, blend math into their lessons.
''I used to just rely on the kids to tell me what was going on in math class," said Nazzaro, a teacher at the Abraham Lincoln School. ''But I think I can also teach them math while writing word problems."
Children in Scott Cabral's fifth-grade class at the Paul Revere School in Revere might see small, subtle differences: Cabral wants to explore with them why 5 times 5 is 25, or whether adding two dimes and two nickels is the same as saying 2 plus 2 is 4. In the past, the teacher would simply just teach them math facts without relating it to something tangible.
''Out of all the subjects, math is the most difficult," Cabral said. ''Kids go in there saying, 'I can't do this; I hate math.' It's our job to get them to have a positive attitude."
Anand Vaishnav can be reached at vaishnav@globe.com.
