GARDEN GROVE : Teaching Math in a Number of Ways

On the first day of classes last week, Amber Poskas, 13, announced to her teachers: “I don’t like school and I don’t want to be here.”

Four days later, however, she openly praised the Summer Mathematics Institute in which she is enrolled. Surprisingly, she said, studying math for three hours each morning “is not boring. It’s fun.”

“It’s the same kind of stuff they teach during the school year, but it’s taught in a fun way,” she added.

Amber is one of about 600 Garden Grove Unified School District students attending classes at Peters Elementary School as part of an intensive three-week program for struggling students. The program, now in its fourth year, is designed to teach math to elementary and intermediate school children, primarily using hands-on experiments and projects.

A typical class is composed of about 20 students and two teachers, said Cheryl Bean, co-director of the program.

Since classes started, experiments have covered probability, graphs and geometry. In one recent lesson, fifth- and sixth-grade students conducted an experiment in probability by spinning a paper clip on a circle divided into numbered sections. Students had to guess how often the paper clip would land on certain numbers, then spin the paper clip repeatedly to determine whether they were correct.

Lisa Hollen, who teaches fifth and sixth grades, said that students often don’t realize they’re learning geometric and numerical concepts. “You hear a lot of them at the end of class say, ‘When are we going to do math?’ ”

Although the program has received rave reviews from students because of its emphasis on hands-on learning, the program’s true focus is on the teachers, Hollen said.

One week before the students began classes, the 54 participating teachers received instruction from several trainers on effective ways to present lessons.

Now teachers meet each afternoon in small groups to review morning classes, share observations about methods that worked and discuss how to improve the next lesson.

Hollen said those sessions have helped her improve her teaching skills. Acting on a suggestion offered during one meeting, she no longer immediately corrects students who give wrong answers.

Instead, she writes all the students’ answers on the board and permits the children as a group to determine correct answers through their work.

Often, for the students who guessed incorrectly, Hollen said, “I don’t have to show them it was wrong, because they figured it out. We see them correct themselves.”

Nancy Maguire, one of the six teacher trainers, said the program inspires students, who are not graded, to do well.

The best reward for teachers is when “you see the light bulb go on,” she said. Often, students sit in classes “like sponges, and you never know what’s going in. But now you hear ‘Oh, I get it!’ a lot.”

Maguire hopes that after finishing the program, “these teachers can have regular school be like this.”