Alabama is the only state where 4th grade math scores are higher now than they were in 2019. How are they doing it? While K – 12 learning was remote during the Covid lockdown DeKalb County’s school district reinvented their math program in elementary schools. The plan was to make math more engaging, more relevant more tangible, more fun.
NPR
According to an article by journalist Cory Turner of NPR (National Public Radio), “When I went to visit a classroom there were containers of things.” There are drawers of wooden cubes, containers of foam pattern blocks. And, there are fraction tiles with the decimal equivalent on one side and written as a fraction on the other.
DeKalb County is a rural area in the northeast corner of state near Lookout Mountain. There Turner visited the third-grade class of Tracy Butts. Turner is impressed when she calls the class to the carpet at the back of the room, without pencil or paper, where the equation 9 times 12 is displayed on a whiteboard.
For NPR
The students sit crisscross applesauce. She insructs them to put their hands on the chest. She reminds them to show by holding up fingers, the number of strategy options they’ve come up with to solve the problem when they are ready to share their answer. Ms. Butts instructs student to not just think of a single way to solve it…. But to think of as many ways as they can…. In their heads. Journalist Turner admits he thought the process “strange.”
One girl skip counts by 9’s until she’s done it 12 times. Another student says they broke up the number 12 into 10 and 2 because it is easier to do the multiplication. … then added the two answers.
Crucially the district focused on supporting the early grade teachers with training in math they usually did not get when teaching these grade levels. And they mandated that for everyone from teacher so administrators the importance of looking at the data. As further commitment to success the district invested in math coaches for each school, ongoing visible demonstrations of support for teachers and acknowledgement.
After DeKalb County began its makeover, the state began pushing many districts to do the same. “Math, when it is properly applied, is not about just solving math problems. Math is a way of thinking about the world. It really is the language of philosophy’” says state school superintendent Eric Mackey. And according to NPR’s Cory Turner one teacher told him “The big math gains they’ve seen here shouldn’t be a surprise. When kids have fun, they learn.”