Dream Realizations Math Stats

About two-thirds of the school's students are low income and 18% are learning English.

Test score gains are highest in elementary schools and drop off precipitously in middle and high school.

Across L.A. Unified, fewer than 20% of high school students scored proficient or better in general mathematics, algebra 1 and 2 and geometry. In fourth grade, by contrast, 67% of students tested as proficient or better in math.

In math, the numbers are 76% for Asians, 61% for whites, 41% for Latinos and 34% for African Americans.

Math learning disabilities are often caused by visual-spatial-motor disorganization.

Math learning strategies described above are adaptable for all students with learning disabilities in mathematics. These math activities are also effective with special needs students who are also functioning at the appropriate grade level.

Using structured, concrete, and hands-on materials is important in tying these links between concepts. This strategy not only applies to elementary grades, it is also vital during concept development stages of higher-level math.

When these problems are accompanied by a need for strong conceptual grasp of mathematical and spatial relations, it is imperative that students are not focusing only on remediating computation.

Math learning disabilities are often caused by visual-spatial-motor disorganization.

experience a weak understanding or lack a comprehension of conceptshave very poor number sense skillsexperience difficulty with pictorial representationshave poorly controlled handwritingexperience confusion with arrangements of numerals and signs on textbook/workbook pages

Math teaching strategies include avoiding the use of pictures or graphics for conveying concepts, constructing verbal versions of math ideas, and using concrete materials in math activities.

math activities designed to assist teachers in reaching students with visual learning disabilities through use of a direct and explicit instruction using a challenging math teaching strategy, along with use of manipulatives.

Theoretically, you could have performed the calculations with a pencil and paper, but no one actually did so. Yet the Supreme Court still held them to be unpatentable mental processes.

The Federal Circuit displays a similar confusion about a more recent case, this one involving an algorithm for digital image half-toning. The court upheld the patent despite the fact that mathematical formulas were "admittedly a significant part" of the patent's claims. In Tuesday's opinion, the court argued that the half-toning patent was different from the fraud-detection patent because the half-toning algorithm "required the manipulation of computer data structures (e.g. the pixels of a digital image and a two-dimensional array known as a mask)."

Of course, a "computer data structure" is just a way of organizing numbers and symbols. When I served as a teacher's assistant (TA) for computer science courses in grad school, I would regularly draw diagrams of data structures on the whiteboard and perform example calculations on them. Similarly, many branches of math involve manipulating "data structures" like ordered pairs and matrices—presumably the Federal Circuit doesn't think you can patent new results in linear algebra because "data structures" are involved.

This highly abstract curriculum is simply not the best way to prepare a vast majority of high school students for life.

most citizens would be better served by studying how mortgages are priced, how computers are programmed and how the statistical results of a medical trial are to be understood.

there is a world of difference between teaching “pure” math, with no context, and teaching relevant problems that will lead students to appreciate how a mathematical formula models and clarifies real-world situations.

Charles Cook, vice chancellor for instruction at Houston Community College. “I think the Statway project really has it right, where we’re looking at mathematical reasoning and problem solving and how math can serve you as a tool to further understanding, further investigation and further knowledge.”

Carnegie’s $14 million Quantway/Statway initiative is developing two mathematics programs: one-year courses that build quantitative literacy (Quantway) and statistical proficiency (Statway). They’re infusing both with teaching strategies that build students’ confidence as math learners.

Mazzocco’s group studied 71 ninth-graders whose math abilities had been tested annually since kindergarten. Students completed two quantity estimation tasks. In one series of trials, participants saw an array of blue and yellow dots flash for a fraction of a second on a computer screen and indicated whether more blue or yellow dots had appeared. In other trials, students saw nine to 15 yellow dots flash on a screen and estimated how many dots were shown.

Institutions are equally affected. A recent report by the Community College Research Center put the annual cost of remediation at $1.9-billion to $2.3-billion at community colleges and $500-million more at four-year colleges.

There is growing recognition that the traditional semester-long course sequence used by many community colleges doesn't work, says Michael Lawrence Collins, associate vice president for postsecondary state policy at Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit that studies education and work-force issues. It's inefficient to have students take up to a year and a half in remediation when many need just pieces of what they're being taught.

The Virginia system is betting on that promise. Its colleges will soon replace their semester-long developmental-math courses with nine units, which can be taken as one-credit classes or Web-based lessons with variable credit hours that allow students to complete more than one unit in a self-paced computer lab and classroom. The number of units that students are required to complete will depend on their placement-test scores and intended program of study. Students focused on the liberal arts will have to show competence in only five units, for example, mastering basic algebra concepts such as linear equations. Students who plan to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, math, or business administration must complete all nine units.

Although he has help from a tutor in the class, it's a lot to juggle, he says. Mr. Wyrick does like how the Web-based class allows him to peek at students' quizzes in real time and track their progress a lot faster than by sorting through homework and test papers himself. "It allows me to intervene even before they ask for help," he says.

There is one certainty. The Virginia Community College system is not the only one anticipating the outcome. Equally curious are researchers and other colleges searching for successful ideas. "There is a risk," Mr. Collins says, "but there is also power in being that bold."

The Virginia Community College system is poised to find out. Starting in 2012, it will adopt a new systemwide developmental-math curriculum that will allow students to focus only on those math concepts they haven't already mastered rather than taking a series of semester-long math courses.

Half of all incoming students in the system need developmental education—and three-fourths of those students fail to graduate or transfer within four years.

the advent of new technologies means that all adults now need to be able to reason mathematically in order to work and live in today's society.

if we do not get our elementary students motivated to study these subjects, then we are facing an uphill battle as we continue our goal that ALL students feel confident and become successful in mathematics and science.

"Are all kids ready for that level of abstraction and complexity by eighth grade?" district spokeswoman Carolyn Seaton said. "Many (experts) say no."

the district three years ago launched an initiative to boost performance in the elementary grades, with an eye toward the ultimate goal: that all eighth-graders not only take algebra I, but also succeed. She said the effort is beginning to pay off: Last year, it produced a class of students so advanced they were able to take algebra in seventh grade.

Math problem There were 90 employees in a company last year. This year the number of employees increased by 10 percent. How many employees are in the company this year? A) 9 B) 81 C) 91 D) 99 E) 100 The answer is D. A report by the Brookings Institution found that only 49 percent of eighth-graders taking algebra knew the correct answer.

Some adaptive-learning software, which tailors lessons and exercises to individual student progress, also uses visual representation to demonstrate relationships.

online drawing programs that allow students and instructors to draw and manipulate shapes and graphs—like the Geometer’s Sketchpad, made by Emeryville, Calif.-based Key Curriculum Press, or the independently run GeoGebra, which has established dozens of institutes across the globe—immediately give users a sense of the relationships that govern geometry, algebra, and even calculus.

While software from Bellevue, Wash.-based DreamBox Learning also uses visual approaches, it differs from MIND’s software because it lets students in grades K-3 choose their own visual representations. After completing a problem one way, students will often be prompted to solve the same problem by choosing a different visualization to reinforce the concept.

its ability to import data from thrice-yearly Washington state standardized testing.

content services like Learn360, from Woodbury, N.Y.-based AIM Education Inc., offer the ability to combine resources into playlists of media set specifically for the needs of individual students, to help give some of that multidimensional understanding of content.

two out of every five American high school seniors scored Below Basic on the science portion of NAEP

Two out of 63 university school of education elementary math programs surveyed by the National Council of Teacher Quality met or exceeded standards for training math teachers

Kindergarten teachers, for example, ignore the need to show kids that numbers represents quantities.

teachers seem to think that "reading… is an aptitude" while "math is an attitude."

Only one out of 63 elementary math programs surveyed by the U.S. Department of Education has been rated as having "potentially positive" effects on student achievement

One out of every three American fourth-graders read Below Basic proficiency on the 2009 NAEP.