WestConn class helps students teach math

By Eileen FitzGerald
THE NEWS-TIMES

November 24, 2006

DANBURY -- The students worked in pairs. One walked backward from a wall in the classroom of Higgins Hall at Western Connecticut State University with a calculator and the attached instrument that charted distance as the time passed. Then they worked out the equation.

The lesson showed the class members how to help students better understand the slope of a line. They're future teachers taking a new WestConn course about different approaches to teaching math concepts to middle schoolers. It provides a needed link between math content from the elementary to secondary levels.

Elementary education majors learn what math their students will be expected to do after the elementary grades. The secondary education majors better understand what background their students will have. Both levels learn current trends used to teach math in the middle grades.

"I think everyone should take this course. It gives you so many ideas for lessons to use,'' said senior Diana Moore, 21, who plans to teach elementary school.

"I have a clearer understanding of the concepts,'' said WestConn senior Danielle Kunz, 22, of Ridgefield, who plans to teach first and second grade.

Kunz liked the algebra tiles, in which different colored shapes were lined up to replicate equations. "It's neat,'' Kunz said. "It's a manipulative and it will definitely help the kids in the future.''

The class was designed last spring by senior Amber Wilk, 22, of Brookfield and math professor Paula Maida, who is offering the class for the first time this fall as an elective.

There are nine juniors, three sophomores, four seniors, one freshman and one graduate student in the class. Four plan to teach secondary school, and the rest plan to teach elementary grades.

"We have a rigorous program for math majors. This is a nice supplement to our existing program,'' Maida said. "This gives students a variety of ways to explain a concept. That's key. They learn how to make the concept more challenging or more appropriate for younger grades."

Maida also introduces activities, such as math competition, to engage students.

"In middle school there is a lot of change intellectually, emotionally and socially. These are critical years to be turned on to math,'' Maida said. "We don't want to intimidate them."

She was planning a lesson to show the future teachers how to create a story graph by following the emotions of a character or the suspense in a story and to link math and reading.

Wilk thinks this class will lead to more kids being interested in math.

"I always wanted to teach high school, but after working on this course and spending a week at Bethel Middle School, I totally fell in love with the middle school students,'' Wilk said.

"They want to be there and they want you to be there, and they still have an interest," she said. "The enthusiasm is there a lot more."

The course is in a trial semester, but is expected to become part of the curriculum.

"It bridges the gap that did exist between the elementary course and the secondary course and enables them to see to see what's important in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades," said professor Josephine Hamer, chairwoman of the math department.

"Courses like this will prepare students to become better math teachers," Hamer said.

Brad Fidler, 22, a senior from Pennsylvania, plans to teach middle school math, so this class was a perfect fit. He said if a teacher doesn't catch a student's interest in math in middle school, he thinks that student will be lost to the field.

He described one class in which students used license plates in Connecticut, which require three letters and three numbers, and figured out how many plates could be made. It expanded upon the multiplication counting principle. "I see great projects from this class.''