The traditional model of teaching and learning mathematics only works for some students.
It was the first day of school in my 7th year teaching at East Kentwood High School, the #1 most diverse public high school in the state of Michigan. My first hour was just ending and I was saying my farewells to a group of students that were taking Algebra 1 for the third or fourth time. My next class period was going to be my first time teaching an upper-level Precalculus class, and as these students started to shuffle into the room, I noticed something very alarming: there was no diversity.
During my prep hour that day, I started looking at my class lists to confirm my earlier noticing. And without a doubt, my repeater Algebra 1 classes had a much higher proportion of students that were Hispanic and Black than my Precalculus classes. Further digging revealed that there were a lot more low-income students in the Algebra 1 course as well.
Naturally, I started to wonder what conditions or systems or structures were leading to this outcome. Was it the varying levels of student motivation? Was it something about the methods and strategies used for math instruction? Was it school policies and systems that were disadvantaging certain students?
And now after more than 20 years of teaching math in a variety of different ways, I am convinced that the biggest reason this problem exists is because of the way we teach math. Teacher lectures at the front of the room. Students silently take notes, followed by practice problems done individually.
What I have found in my own classroom is that this approach to teaching and learning mathematics only works for some students. It is the students that know how to play the game of school. Listen to the teacher. Write down the notes. Mimic the steps the teacher used to solve a problem. But this is not most students. For most students, this approach to learning is barely sufferable, leading to low interest and motivation for learning mathematics. Even if they can manage to play the game, their short term results don’t lead to an enduring understanding of mathematical concepts.
Furthermore, this issue compounds year after year. Poor performance in one math class likely leads to poor performance in the next math class, as mathematical knowledge builds throughout high school. So small disadvantages early on in high school can lead to huge differences by the end of high school.
The traditional model for teaching mathematics leads many students to be disengaged and unmotivated, hampering their ability to truly understand the mathematical concepts. The lack of understanding then gets worse as they progress through their high school math courses. This helps to explain the huge color shift I saw in the student population from my repeater Algebra students to my upper-level Precalculus students.
So if the lecture-based traditional model for teaching mathematics isn’t working, what methods and strategies do work for creating more equitable outcomes in high school mathematics?