Posts Tagged ‘math education’

Making Up for Summer Learning Loss

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Nothing is quite like summer vacation. As young students, we counted down the dwindling days of the school year in anticipation of our big breaks. Now, as parents, we contemplate what exactly to do with our children now that they are out of school. It is looking more and more important that we find something educational to occupy their time if we want them to stay competitive with their classmates.

The ordinary nine-month school year is an antiquated idea. Two factors contributed to its inception. First, the percentage of families that had agricultural backgrounds was high when public schools were in their infancy. A summer break was needed so that those students who needed to help on the farm could do so. Also, air conditioning is a relatively modern invention. In the days prior to its existence, schools couldn’t provide a climate-controlled environment for the students. In the summer months, the heat could be too much for classroom instruction.

A lot has changed. Most families have no ties to agricultural work, and air conditioning is standard in every school. The reasons for the nine-month schedule have changed but the schedule remains. That can be a problem because studies show that students lose some of what they’ve learned when they take a prolonged break from school.

A meta-analysis of studies about summer learning loss showed that students can lose about one month of education instruction over the long break. The effect on math skills was particularly pronounced. Also, it appears that the learning loss in reading for low-income students is greater than it is for their better-off peers.

The effects of summer learning loss can be devastating. For instance, students from well off families may receive additional instruction over the summer while lower class students do not. This can leave lower income students at a disadvantage when the school year begins anew – a disadvantage that they may never recover from. Also, it is just a major setback for school systems when they essentially waste a month’s worth of instruction thanks to summer break.

Many school districts are taking steps to fix this problem. Year-round school has become more common, for one thing. Two other possible solutions are summer school and extended school years. But if you are a parent whose school system doesn’t provide any easy solutions, you may have to take it upon yourself to give your children extra education opportunities over the summer.

Check out this article from education.com to get more details about summer learning loss and the origin of our modern school calendar.

And go to education.com’s section on summer learning to find links to other helpful articles that can provide ideas and activities for summer education opportunities.

Refer to an earlier Tri-Ed blog to get some more ideas of how you can work learning into everyday activities.

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Separating the Boys from the Girls

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Some Prince William County schools are trying out something that may be the bane of hormonal boys everywhere — single-sex classrooms.

The most recent adopter is Fred Lynn Middle School, which will start the single-sex classes in the fall. It’s following the lead of Woodbridge Middle, which piloted a single-sex classroom program three years ago.

Fred Lynn Middle’s Principal J. Harrison-Coleman, who originally started a single-sex program at a Portsmouth area school, tried out the idea on a smaller scale at Fred Lynn earlier this year. She pulled aside 10 boys struggling in math for one period and gave them instruction as a group. The majority improved. Harrison-Coleman attributed the success to the focus possible in a single-sex classroom.

“Not having to impress girls, what a difference it has made in them,” she said.

To read more about the program at Fred Lynn, go to Inside Nova .

Single-sex classrooms are not particular to Prince William County. As educators across the country try to find ways to better teach students, single-sex education has been adopted in many jurisdictions.

The results can be good.

On its website, the National Association for Single-sex Public Education cites the example of a three year pilot project conducted by researchers at Stetson University in Florida. The study compared single-sex classrooms with coed classrooms at nearby public school Woodward Avenue Elementary. Look at what the comparison discovered in regard to scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test:

Boys in coed classes had a 37 percent proficiency rating and girls in coed classes had 59 percent. That’s shockingly low when compared with all-boy classrooms, 86 percent, and all-girl classrooms, 75 percent.

Go to the website for information about this and more.

The NASSPE is careful not to claim single-sex education as a panacea, however:

“First point to remember, when you consider evidence regarding the effectiveness of gender-separate classrooms: Simply putting girls in one room, and boys in another, is no guarantee of anything good happening. On the contrary: some public schools which have adopted single-sex classrooms, without appropriate preparation, have experienced bad outcomes,” the website states.

The website provides a link to a 2005 commentary written for Education Week by Dr.  Leonard Sax, executive director of NASSPE. In the article, Sax explores single-sex education in more detail, giving examples of successes and failures, and expanding on some of the less-known portions of the topic. He begins his article with a number of interesting questions:

“Why the surge of interest in single-sex education? And should we perhaps be more cautious, and more concerned about the possibility that single-sex education might reinforce harmful gender stereotypes? Also, most of the North American research on single-sex education has been conducted in private or parochial schools, which may evoke images from “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and “Dead Poets Society.” Can single-sex education really work in the more diverse setting of American public schools, particularly in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods where academic excellence is least often found? What happens when Mr. Chips meets Snoop Dogg?” he asks.

Of course, those words were written in 2005 and, no doubt, much has changed since then. But nevertheless, the NASSPE still points to that article as one that contains wisdom on the topic of single-sex classrooms.

You can read Dr. Sax’s article here .

Done right or wrong, single-sex classes are becoming more prevalent, as evidenced by the recent decision to go forward with the classes at Fred Lynn Middle School. So, it’s important that parents, students and educators learn as much as possible.

Before you know it, single-sex education could be coming to a classroom near you.

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Avoid Summer Learning Loss

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Washingtonpost.com published an article yesterday about the “Summer Brain Drain”.  This is the amount of knowledge that students lose during the summer months.  Many parents are concerned about the possible loss in progress of reading but what some may not consider is the effect that the summer has on math skills.  According to the article, most students lost 2-2.5 months of math skills during the summer.  The decline in reading skills is largely dependent on socio-economic factors.  Students from lower socio-economic groups generally lose gains made in reading during the school year whereas students from middle and upper class families generally continue to progress in reading throughout the summer.

What we can definitely take from this research is that students must continue to have educational experiences during the summer.  Parents and students often hear the word educational and think “boring” but there are many educational experiences that can be a lot of fun.

  • Libraries: For younger students, story times and craft times are available at the public libraries. They often also have reading programs to encourage summer reading.
  • Museums and Parks: All age groups can enjoy the museums and parks available locally.  Up the educational benefit by getting a little creative.  Have students research and journal about what they would like to learn before they go or write about their favorite part of the trip when they return home.   Before going to the park, create a scavenger hunt of things you may see on a nature walk.
  • Around the House: Cooking is a great time to talk about the applications of fractions.  Grocery lists can provide an opportunity for writing for students and doing the shopping provides an application for discussing budgeting, needs vs. wants, and measurements (such as weighing produce).
  • Games: Almost anything can be made into a game.
    • Cards: With most of my math students, I keep a pack of cards in my bag. When we have some down time, I will take out the face cards and play a game with them. For example, you can deal the cards. Each player flips two cards.  The player whose cards add up to the highest sum gets to keep the cards.  For older elementary students, you can change the game to multiplication.  For upper elementary or middle school students, the game can be modified again to create fractions.
    • Mental Math: On a long car ride, challenge your students to a competition of mental math.  Pick a number that is not a perfect square and see who can get closest to the
      square root.  You and your child each choose a two digit number and see who can multiply them the fastest.  Another game is to use only the numbers from the year that we are in, see how many of the numbers from 1-100 you can make. Any operations can be used.  For example, you could use 2009 to make 11 by adding 2+0+0+9. Or you could get more creative by saying 20-09. More advanced math can be used for this game such as roots and exponents.  For example, 1 can be made by √9 -2 +0+0.
    • Storytelling: For younger students, you can tell number stories to encourage math facts.  For example, “On the way to the beach, we passed 3 cars and 4 trucks.  How many total automobiles did we pass? While driving, we had to stop twice to let your brother go to the bathroom, three times to get gas, and three times to ask for directions. How many total stops did we make?” Encourage your students to also make their own stories for you to answer.

The idea is that educational opportunities can take place any time and any place with a little creative energy.  For more ideas, feel free to contact Tri-Ed Tutoring.  If you feel that your student would benefit from more structured instruction during the summer, contact us about how a private tutor may help.

To read the rest of the article from the Washington Post, click here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402427.html?referrer%3Demailarticle%26sid%3Dhttp://www.washingthttp://www.washingtonpost.com:80/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin/registration/register&sub=AR

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