A discouraging fact is that many low-income U.S. students today lack the opportunity to study higher level mathematics in high school. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights Data, there are close to 3,000 high schools serving nearly 500,000 students that fail to offer Algebra II or higher level math.  For these students, performance on college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT that include higher level algebra questions is negatively affected.

Success in Algebra II and beyond has been shown to be a strong indicator for college completion. For each level of completion from Algebra II, to trigonometry, to pre-calculus, to calculus, the chances of a student completing a bachelor’s degree increased by a factor of 2.59 to 1, and the students who simply complete a math course beyond Algebra II are twice as likely to complete a bachelor’s degree when enrolling in post-secondary education than a student who has not completed similar coursework. In an economy where access to and completion of higher education is critical, students who lack access to higher level math instruction are at disadvantage. As a nation, we must ensure that students today are able to take and successfully complete higher level courses to increase the number of educated, work-ready college graduates. 

Strong math skills don’t just help students get into and out of college, but they help them make better financial decisions, beginning with those that involve investments in higher education.

When students consider where to invest their dollars and time, they need the math skills to understand tuition costs and the time-value of money. They need to know how to read financial aid packages and calculate interest costs that are often confusing and packaged in misleading ways. And they need to be able to weigh these tuition and borrowing costs against the prospects for gainful employment to make sound decisions for their future. We as a nation need these students to make sound decisions for a more stable economy.

My book Dollars & Sense: How to Be Smart about Money helps teens distinguish between wants and needs, find higher education that fits their budget, and starts them on pathway to smart spending, investing, and saving. Find out more about getting your teen financially savvy before they make any big money mistakes.

We know our math scores aren’t competitive with other developed countries. We all know someone, or we may be someone, who dislikes math. But why does an interest in math matter? Yes, being competitive in the global arena is crucial for our nation’s advancement. Yes, taking a math course is required to graduate. But math helps individuals accomplish much more than an “A” on their exam.

On the most basic level, learning math promotes analytical thinking skills. Dr. Vinod Menon, professor of psychiatry and neurological sciences at Stanford University, has conducted research illustrating how one year of math instruction has significant impact on the brain’s approach to problem-solving as revealed through brain scans of second and third graders.¹ As students move through math curricula from elementary to high school, they must learn to apply what they know to new ideas and different types of problems, building more complex thinking processes. Years of math where students work through steps, identify patterns, and apply complex thought processes hardwires the brain for deeper level thinking.

Beyond brain function, studying challenging math can promote perseverance and a mindset for rigor, which helps students far beyond the math classroom. Conquering math involving deeper and more complex thinking promotes a mental agility for problem-solving that can be called upon in a variety of arenas. And the willingness to work through challenging math helps students to develop the mindset to stay and wrestle with problems longer.

Students need math skills to think critically about finances. Stephen Meier, assistant professor at Columbia University, conducted a study indicating borrowers with poor math skills were two times more likely than others to experience home foreclosure.²  While he believed the results were no surprise, he hadn’t expected as great of a correlation between math abilities and foreclosure rates. The math skills necessary for sound investing are just as important for sound borrowing. Consider the “house of card” investments, ponzi schemes, hidden charges in investment portfolios, and other hard to assess situations people must wade through to make smart investment choices.

But for many students, learning to embrace challenge and build upon successes earned by overcoming difficult material, breeds confidence and an internal motivation stoked by knowing that with effort, achieving what was once believed too difficult, becomes a key ingredient for success. Overcoming the challenges that math often presents provides this experience.

Possessing math skills can open many possibilities for individuals, whether it leads to making more educated decisions in everyday life or leads to a career choice in a STEM field. How do you get students interested in math?

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¹â€œAdding it Up: Research Shows how early math lessons change children’s brain,” by Erin Digitale, http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/june/math.html

²â€œStudy Says Math Deficiencies Increase Foreclosure Risk” by Bob Tedeschi, June 11, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/realestate/12mort.html

There is no question that the need to improve American students’ math scores has garnered much attention on a national level. U.S. Education officials have been pushing reform for years now. We simply aren’t going to be able to compete with our global competitors in knowledge-based fields if we continue to fall short in math and science. So what can we do?

Set high expectations

According to the College Readiness report by ACT, students who take the recommended core curriculum for high school including three years of math achieve higher ACT scores than those who don’t, regardless of socio-economic background, race and gender.¹

But expectations for students to take and succeed at high level math and science courses in high school must be balanced by preparing them well in early years to do just this.

Our expectations for students to succeed at high levels of math and science need to be rooted in deep learning early on and continued support throughout the years, rather than pushing high level curriculum down the pipeline to earlier grades.

Provide ample challenging opportunities

We need to help students learn to embrace challenge early on in their mathematical studies and develop critical thinking road maps for problem solving.

As a nation, continued PR and media campaigns promoting role models in math and science innovation can add to a shift in the mindset of young students. NOVA has a fantastic series called The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers that aims to inspire more youth to pursue STEM careers by profiling STEM professionals who lead less than ordinary lives.

Debunk the “I’m not good at math” myth

If we begin to teach math in a way that rewards students for their time and effort, rather than simply on a right or wrong answer, we can nurture a mindset where they aren’t afraid of a challenge and take the time to figure it out.

Part of the challenge lies in helping students see that their math skills are not fixed, and that with effort they can improve with the help of a consistent educator or mentor working along side a student, helping him or her build on previous skills, and witness growth in process.

Adopt practices that are getting great results

What seems to work the best is when students learn math in a logical, consistent manner, mastering number facts and arithmetic, while being given the opportunity, once such mastery is achieved to explore conceptual problems and more challenging abstract applications of mathematical concepts. To do this successfully requires teachers adept at teaching math in both of these modes.

If we improve the math education for teachers in training and reduce their anxiety toward math, they’ll be better prepared to help students develop math as a strength skill rather than a liability.

Last of all, a simple but strategic practice for improving student math performance is to teach students strategies for working with their math textbooks.

Make Use of Technology

From Khan Academy videos, to online tutorial programs, to flipped classrooms, technology can be leveraged today to improve students’ math performance

Promote Positive Attitudes for Students

An additional insight offered by the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center is that students from around the world do better in math if they maintain a positive attitude about the subject.²

Do you have any other strategies for improving math skills? Please share in the comments.  Stay tuned for more math themed blogs this week!

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^{1 “}Benefits of a High School Core Curriculum” College Readiness, 2006, ACT. http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/core_curriculum.pdf 

² “Parental Expectations and Academic Achievement” Julie Grossman, Megan Kun-McKearin, William Strein, 2011. http://www.education.umd.edu/Academics/Faculty/Bios/facData/CHSE/strein/ParentalExpectationsAndAcademicAchievement.pdf

As a result of lost manufacturing and outsource jobs, the U.S. needs to look to the future—to new opportunities and growing markets to be able to compete globally, and all indicators point to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

According to research compiled by the Joint Economic Committee Chairman’s Staff in their report, “STEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future,” technology innovations have fueled the American economy, with some studies crediting over half of our economic growth in the past fifty years coming from improved productivity resulting from innovation. And the trend seems to be continuing. The demand for workers with degrees in the STEM fields is rising and expected to increase according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, the U.S. is not producing enough graduates in the fields of math, engineering, computer science, and therefore creating a skill gap. Forbes Magazine published a list “10 Skills that will Get You Hired in 2013” and mathematics was sixth on the list. The need for understanding arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics and the corresponding applications was found in 6 out of the 10 most in-demand jobs now.

So why are we as a nation struggling to impact math achievement when we know what today’s and tomorrow’s economy will demand of future workers, and what an increase in math achievement will provide for all?

As a nation, we must first acknowledge and embrace the changing economy and the demands that will be placed on the next generation of workers. We must educate students and parents about the opportunities that await those who achieve in the fields of math and science, and get more children, especially girls and students of color, into these fields. We must honestly invest in K12 education, attracting teachers to the field who can not only teach math but help bridge the classroom to the real world applications. We must introduce legislation that emphasizes the need for math achievement, rewards the schools getting it right, and provides the financial means to make schools successful in these areas.  And finally, we must continue the fight to make higher education accessible to students.

Is it mandatory that educators use technology to engage young minds in the digital age?

For many schools and individuals, the terms “student” and “education” have become redefined — and undefined — by digital tools. For example, “students” can still be teens who attend a brick and mortar high school, but they might also be a retired lawyer who takes advantage of Stanford’s free online classes. Some students attend a “flipped-classroom” where they take a lesson at home on YouTube and come to class to do their homework. Some students master activities through gaming, answer tests on their cellphones, and collaborate with peers by developing computer software.

In today’s classroom, it’s hip to throw out traditional classroom conventions for shiny technology in an attempt to relate to a new generation. However, as tech savvy as some of the new generation is, they are still a generation defined by a lack of critical thinking and STEM skills, and they suffer from high dropout and low-college completion rates, staggering unemployment rates, and a lack of real-world skills. Student engagement, not technology, is still key in getting students involved in school. Technology is one way to capture young minds, but it isn’t the only way to make a lesson fresh, engaging, and challenging.

Some recent articles show how educators are bringing life to their lessons, and they do so without a mention of technology.

ART

Eric Azcuy is a young art teacher at a 6-12 grade South Bronx school, where 91.2 percent of kids qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The art projects he assigns in his class aren’t only for aesthetics, they also help students make a connection between art and their other lessons, according to the article “The Art of Slipping in Some Learning.”

Azcuy gives the example of how he incorporated math skills in a sixth-grade drawing assignment. He asked students to draw a picture of an item that was 100% the object, then 75% the object and 25% imagination, and on and on until the object was 100% imagination. Students didn’t even know they were learning fractions. Educators don’t have to be artists to bring art into their lessons. The purpose of combining art with math, science, etc. is to make learning about an intimidating subject more accessible, hands-on, and creative. How can you bring sculpture into a math, science, or English class to enhance your lesson? How can you bring music into an art class?

POETRY

Engage students in a subject by using something — beside technology — that they can relate to. In 1975, Bob Lenz’s teacher played the Beatles’ song Fool on the Hill to introduce poetry. The class analyzed the pop song and used it as a jumping off point to study other genres of poetry and write their own, Lenz explains in the article “Poetry Can Change a Student’s Life.” In the end, students presented their collection of poems in a handmade, handwritten book of poetry, and read an excerpt to their parent-audience in the classroom that had been turned into a cafe, complete with refreshments.

Lenz says this project-based class he had over 30 years ago inspired his career in teaching and how he presented his lessons. What are the most vivid lessons you remember from your school years? Were they project-based?

KINESTHETIC

Do you know the difference between explicit learning and implicit learning? Explicit learning is defined as “labeled learning,” including what students read, write, and talk about. “Implicit learning includes, hands on learning, role-play, trial-and-error, life experiences, drama games, and active learning,” writes Karen Boyes. “Researchers believe that implicit learning is much more reliable than old-style classroom education, with an emphasis on reading textbooks and memorizing facts.”

In her article “The Value of Kinesthetic Arts Within the Classroom,” Boyes gives many suggestions for energizing your classroom routines with kinesthetic arts. One idea she gives is to use dramatic arts as a vehicle to teach math. For this project, students will use their math skills to measure, calculate budgets, and order supplies in order to make a set for a play.

Technology can be powerful, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that the mind and body are also powerful tools in the learning process. When you define relevance for a student, what is relevant to their lives beside technology? How can you help them develop practical and relevant skills while using the visual, oratory, or physical arts?

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Sources:

“The Art of Slipping in Some Learning,” by Eddie Small. 6 April 2012. SchoolBook (The New York Times). Accessed on 10 April 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/04/06/the-art-of-slipping-in-some-learning/

“Poetry Can Change a Student’s Life,” by Bob Lenz. 6 April 2012. Eduptopia. Accessed in 9 April 2012. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/using-lyrics-poetry-classroom-bob-lenz?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=poetrychangelife

“The Value of Kinesthetic Arts within the Classroom,” by Karen Boyes. 9 April 2012. LifeBound. Accessed on 9 April 2012. http://www.lifebound.com/blog/educators/the-value-of-kinesthetic-arts-within-the-classroom/

One-quarter of high school students drop out every year. Of the students who do graduate, two-fifths leave underprepared for college or career and fifty-seven percent leave not having mastered remedial math, according to a recent Fast Company article.  These statistics are tragic, but anymore, they aren’t shocking. Today, there is a fight for better institutions, educators, leaders, technology, funding, parents, and students. The article goes on to share some statistics that show why the fight is more important than ever.

According to the National Science Foundation, it’s predicted that 80% of the jobs created over the next decade will demand mastery of technology, math, or science. To put this growth in perspective, consider how technology has taken over in the past 10 years. Have you been to a job interview where your computational skills were below what the position required? Over the past 10 years,  the amount of STEM jobs has grown three times greater than non-STEM jobs…and it’s not stopping.

Making STEM education available to students to prepare them for the jobs of the future is easier said than done. Low-income students in Florida are facing a problem that might never cross the minds of their more affluent peers. The students have personal devices, like smartphones, and the school has provided each student with an e-Reader. The problem is that they can’t afford Internet access to use their devices, according to the recent article “Many Low-Income Students Struggle with Lack of Internet at Home,”

Students in California recently raised money to travel to San Francisco and stand up for their technological rights at the Digital Media and Learning conference. In a Mind/Shift article, Tina Barseghian writes, the students made it clear to their listeners: “We demand access to the same technology that privileged students have in order to survive in the working world, to compete in any meaningful way, and to amplify our voices.”

For many school districts, providing outdated or limited technology is not a choice; it’s a result of not having the funding to improve their programs. For many corporations afraid of an innovation crisis, the outdated STEM education students are getting isn’t going to cut it in when today’s students become tomorrow’s workforce. That’s why corporations like Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Target, AT&T, and more are making an investment in their future by donating any where between multimillions to billions of dollars to schools.

However, giving school more money still isn’t the whole answer. “There’s this tendency to think that we can throw money at the problem and fix it. That’s simply not true. We need capacity building–companies sharing their unique resources in order to fill critical gaps,” says Sandi Everlove, interim CEO at a STEM nonprofit.

What could schools do to show big corporations the demands they have? What guidance can be given to corporations to ensure this opportunity to fund STEM programs actually helps today’s students?  How can people from various positions come to the table–professors, K-12 administrators, content providers, politicians,business people, not-for-profit leaders and educational visionaries–to chart the course for our most disadvantaged and  least championed students, teachers and parents in our society?  How can we think as differently about education as Steve Jobs did about computing?  How can we impact this urgent matter today?

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Sources:

“How Corporations Are Helping to Solve the Education Crisis,” by Judah Schiller and Christine Arena. 23 March 2012. Fast Company, Accessed on 23 March 2012. http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679529/how-corporations-are-helping-to-solve-the-education-crisis

“Many Low-Income Students Struggle with Lack of Internet at Home,” by Walter Pacheco. 18 March 2012. Orlando Sentinel. Accessed on 23 March 2012. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-18/business/os-students-without-internet-access-20120318_1_internet-access-digital-textbooks-school-districts

Students Demand the Right to use Technology in Schools,” By Tina Barseghian. 6 March 2012. Mind/Shift. Accessed on 23 March 2012. http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/03/students-demand-the-right-to-use-technology-in-schools/  

How do you answer the math student’s favorite question: When are we ever going to use this?

Mind/Shift writer Audrey Watters points to New York Times op-ed writers Sol Garfunkel and David Mumford who say if we want better scores and want students to be more interested, make math more applicable to the student’s life. Garfunkel and Mumford say it’s a fact that different careers need different math skills, and that our education systems should be adjusted to value this.

The writers make the point that mathematicians, physicists, and engineers might need to know what to do with “complex numbers” and a “group of transformations,” but most of the workforce will benefit from “studying how mortgages are priced, how computers are programmed, and how the statistical results of a medical trial are to be understood.”

This new math would still “expose students to the abstract tools of math” but with a real-life application that gives math a context to their everyday life, future, and wellness of our economy. Students would learn “quantitative literacy” that allows them to make connections in life (they give the example of being confronted with a medical test result and deciding if they should undergo more procedures) and “mathematical modeling” that gives people the tools to make the connection between everyday things and math (they give the example whether you should buy or lease a new car).

Whether or not the math curriculum evolves to include teaching students the finance skills they need to be smart consumers, students need to learn these skills somewhere in their education. LifeBound’s new book Dollars & Sense: How to Be Smart About Money teaches students to start thinking about financial issues like budgeting, investing, and staying out of debt before it becomes a problem. This book can be taught in the classroom or used for independent study. To learn more, visit our new website at www.lifebound.com.

Do you think giving math a real-world application could improve students’ math scores? Do you think math with a real-world application is more valuable for a students’ future than the abstract math taught in today’s classroom? Share your perspective in the comment box below.

Sources:

“How to Fix Our Math Education” by Sol Garfunkel and David Mumford. 24 August 2011. New York Times. Accessed on 12 September 2011.< http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opinion/how-to-fix-our-math-education.html>

“Is Math Education Too Abstract?” by Audrey Watters. 12 September 2011. Mind/Shift. Accessed on 12 September 2011. <http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/09/is-math-education-too-abstract/>