The second in a series that every Parent, Student and Educator Can Read to Better Understand the Current American Math Problem and Concerns about “Flipped Classroom”.

Since the turn of the century, though the ‘Math Wars’ may have quieted, there is still a fair amount of debate – in this country, particularly – about how best to teach mathematics to students. We continue to compare the achievements of our students to those in other countries. We continue to debate methods. We continue to debate the causes of failures to increase the number of students we deem proficient at mathematics, as well as what constitutes proficiency.

In making comparisons to students from other countries, it’s important to realize that in some places, their upper-school structure is quite different. In some places, students are placed in different ‘tracks’, with different requirements for successfully completing education. As an example of different high school structure, in the UK “high school” ends for some students about age 16 when they have completed (typically) 8-10 subjects and gotten the General Certificate of Secondary Education for those subjects. The subject content is made up of English, Math, Sciences and electives. At that point, a choice is made to continue on to ‘A’ Levels of schooling, or to go on to other options. ‘A’ Levels are required for moving on to University. It is similar in Denmark, with school being compulsory only until the age of 15/16, though most continue with education for another two years. Those years can have an academic or a trade focus.

By contrast, every student in the US is (for the most part) expected to earn a high school diploma. There are some programs that offer trade courses alongside academic courses, like that at UCVTS, but there is no option for ending school at the age of 16 other than dropping out. It is this one-size-fits-all thinking that defines a large part of our education system, with Federal programs like No Child Left Behind attempting to achieve a baseline measure for all students.  Considering the vast differences in academic ability, that’s difficult – if not impossible – to achieve.  Unfortunately, some of the practices we’ve implemented have minimal success for students who struggle to meet the baseline, while holding back those who have a higher capacity to absorb new information.

In Berkeley Heights, Dr. Kelly Curtiss presented at the October PTO Curriculum meeting, with minutes available to the public. According to the minutes, the current progression in math, beginning in sixth grade, is as follows. For the “Regular” path, students take Grade 6 math in sixth grade, and Pre-Algebra/Algebra in seventh and eighth. These students may take Algebra again at the high school, or move on to Geometry. For the “Accelerated” path, students in sixth grade take an accelerated version of Grade 6 math which includes Pre-Algebra concepts, then Pre-Algebra in seventh and Algebra in eighth, which allows them to take Geometry at the high school. Roughly 25 students are “Double Accelerated” taking Algebra in seventh grade and Geometry in eighth. (This is slightly different than what my family experienced, as my children are older.)

Dr. Curtiss says that the Algebra curriculum is the same in all paths, but for Accelerated students, Geometry and Measurement standards are missing, resulting in a sacrifice of depth and rigor to achieve that acceleration and that the majority of accelerated students are struggling. Currently, all seventh-graders have a concepts class which incorporates Geometry and Measurements standards, and students at GL who have not achieved a pathway to graduation are receiving the EMSTA class during lunch. (We have written about this previously.) Most recent numbers for the NJ GPA test are 73.4% of students meeting graduation requirements in math.

Dr. Curtiss is proposing Math 8 as part of the District’s goals to help better align with the NJ Standards and provide a better foundation, and this would begin in September 2025. In September of 2026, the District would see a revised Algebra 1 curriculum, with coordination from both general education and special education teachers. Acceleration will continue to be an option. This proposal seems to better align with the progression of math in other countries, where it isn’t expected that every student should be at the same level, and where there is nothing unusual about a student who isn’t striving to take advanced math classes.  It sounds like this revised math curriculum gives students more time to learn the information presented.

If you’re not concerned about how other countries structure their high schools, that’s completely understandable.  However, when it comes to how other countries teach, it’s worth paying attention because in this age where information is shared with a few clicks, trends and ‘new’ methods of teaching tend to be more global than ever before.  Thinking Classroom, which was developed by a professor in Canada, gained widespread use in Australia and is now widely used there, in Canada, and in the US, despite its methodologies not moving the needle when looking at a wider perspective.  The largest gains were seen in very low-performing schools where there was the largest room for improvement.  It can be argued that any new method will necessarily mean more intense focus by educators while being implemented, and that the gains are a result of additional time and attention from teachers.

In this district, we’ve been discussing this method of teaching for years now.  It is one of the few times large numbers of parents have stood up and shown their interest and concern as a group.  Despite our district saying we are no longer using Thinking Classroom, the presentation given by Dr. Curtiss, and the video shown, mirrored many of Thinking Classroom’s methodologies.  There is an article here which is well worth reading, but for this article’s purpose I won’t summarize here.

It does seem that at this point most teachers who are using these teaching methods (regardless of what name they carry) are doing so in limited fashion, which is great.  Limiting gives the kids for whom this method is more effective a chance for ‘discovery learning’, but doesn’t cripple students who were left behind by this method.  At the same time, at least two teachers in our district are now using a practice called Flipped Classroom.  In this practice, students ‘flip’ the instructional period from the classroom to homework.  They learn the material at home before the next class.  The theory is that by having the student learn the material beforehand, the teacher is freed up to provide more time for discussion and questions, and the student is able to bring more specific and relevant questions to the teacher.  In the same way that most of my research on Thinking Classroom turned up nothing but praise from education administrators, the same is true of Flipped Classroom.

The majority of criticism centers around the claims that ‘students don’t do the work at home’ and that this method doesn’t work for students who may have issues with technology, as much of the homework/self-learning is done via online resources and videos.  There is very little published that addresses whether self-learning or discovery learning is resulting in students being able to learn better or learn more.  In fact, this goes right back to the Math Wars and the history of mathematics discussed in Part One of these articles.

There is a reason we no longer have schools which are entirely self-directed by children, and why we don’t hear as much about teaching the “whole child” as we used to.  There is a place in education for rote memorization, repetition, and direct instruction.  We need to find better ways to measure the effectiveness of a teaching method besides waiting five years to analyze standardized test scores.  One of those ways could just be that when large groups of students and parents are all saying, “This isn’t working” that we don’t immediately reject the statement merely because students and parents aren’t educators.  We need better evidence for the effectiveness of a new teaching method than accepting research that is provided by the very person who created the method, as was the case for many years with Peter Liljedahl’s Thinking Classroom.

Students should be afforded the opportunity to determine class selection prior to having the surprise of an entirely new teaching method being sprung on them without warning; especially when they are Juniors and Seniors who are striving to balance class load and quality with maintaining their GPAs.  We need to acknowledge that there are some students whose strengths do not lie in mathematics and determine what level of placement best helps them achieve to their highest potential.

This is all a very tall order.  If it were easy, we wouldn’t have questions, debates and “Math Wars”.  One of the best tools available to us is to look at the history we’ve already been through and combine it with the most current scientific evaluation while avoiding the temptation to believe that everything new is automatically better.  I believe we’re in a better place now than in the recent past in our district, but that doesn’t mean parents can stop paying attention and avoid speaking out if we see problems.  Know our history and use it for our betterment, or in other words, apply what we’ve learned, just as our educators are asking our students to do.

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