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Slipping math marks — a complex problem for Red Deer school districts

Educators looking at ways to boost numeracy
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Math teacher Fikret Mujezinovic shows his students a calculation at Red Deer’s Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School. (Photo by LANA MICHELIN/Advocate staff).

Red Deer public schools are promising to put extra focus on numeracy after 40 per cent of Grade 9 students failed their provincial achievement tests.

According to figures released by Red Deer public schools, their last Grade 9 test results fell almost right along the provincial average.

That means that in the 2016-17 school year, 59.5 of Grade 9 students in the Red Deer public district achieved a passing grade or better on the test, while just above 40 per cent failed.

Red Deer public school students did get a percentage point more than the provincial average in the excellence category, with 16 per cent of local students achieving 80 per cent or more on the test.

By comparison, in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools, the results were six percentage points higher.

Sixty-six per cent of Grade 9 students achieved an acceptable grade and 34 per cent failed.

However, only 12 per cent of local Catholic students got 80 per cent or more on the test, which is below the provincial average of 15 per cent.

Dave Khatib, the Catholic district’s associate superintendent of inclusive learning, is among those who blame the test for being unfairly difficult.

“I feel (last year’s) PAT is an inaccurate assessment,” he said, since students around the province uniformly did poorer than in years past.

Red Deer public school superintendent Stu Henry believes there’s logic in this assumption, especially since both district’s students did much better in the last Grade 6 math provincial achievement test.

However, Henry feels it’s wise to keep on top of slipping math results, since the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed Canadian students aren’t doing quite as well in math as five years ago.

Naz Coulton, director of Sylvan Learning Centre in Red Deer, has had more calls from parents in recent years who want to give their children extra math help. There seems to be growing concern about math marks.

“They realize the higher math class (their children) take in Grade 12, the more options they will have,” said Coulton.

Regardless of employment prospects, Henry believes knowledge of arithmetic is vital for problem solving and abstract thinking.

Although some critics think schools aren’t teaching the math fundamentals, Henry said results from the early grades show that’s not true, but that students are having more difficulty later with math’s complexities.

High school math has grown in difficulty over the years, so the Grade 12 math Henry completed in the 1980s is really more like Grade 10 math today, he said. Many university concepts, such as calculus, are now taught in high school.

But Henry pledges his district will renew focus on numeracy by taking time to ensure there’s teaching consistency in all math classes.

Since some teachers are not as comfortable as others in teaching arithmetic, “we will be building their confidence and passion in the subject…”

He’s also planning to provide a workshop for parents interested in knowing how they can support their child’s math education at home.

Students have their own ideas of how math classes can be improved.

Simon Annable, a Grade 9 student at Lindsay Thurber High School, believes teachers should have the ability to explain a math problem several ways, because not all students will understand a first example.

Once a problem is explained over a couple of days, Annable (who wants to be an artist), thinks it’s time for the class to go ahead to the next chapter and not sit on the same subject matter all week long.

Students who still don’t understand should be able to get individual help, the student added.

Classmate Mason Brown likes math — especially when teachers find ways to make it “interactive… I like when there are opportunities to build things and try different things,” he said.

Kaeidyn Hasnip agrees there needs to be consistency in math teaching at all grade levels.

“There are some teachers who were not teaching at a level that students should be taught at.”



lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com

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Student Kaeidyn Hasnip and teacher Fikret Mujezinovic work together on a math problem at Red Deer’s Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School. (Photo by LANA MICHELIN/Advocate staff).