STEM

The Joy of Math

With a new mentoring program for MAT students, BU Wheelock faculty sets out to prove math is fun—and even a conduit for social change

For many Americans, enthusiasm for learning math peaks at around fourth grade. That’s because in most schools, math curricula for younger learners center on play, problems you can solve with your hands, and lots of group work. Kids are adding and subtracting by counting beans, getting to know geometry through magnetic plastic tiles, and figuring out weights and measures by playing with measuring cups and bowls. Soon, however, math class loses its mojo. Manipulatives, like blocks, shapes, and other objects, along with educational group games are out. Instead, lessons are filled with math facts to memorize and repetitive problems to solve on your own. And the kids don’t like it.

“Math can be fun, but somewhere along the way we’re losing students,” says Aaron Brakoniecki, a senior lecturer and program director in mathematics education, who points to recent student surveys showing that enjoyment of learning math plummets between fourth and eighth grade.

A new project, co-led by Brakoniecki, Clinical Associate Professor Alejandra Salinas, Clinical Professor Debra Borkovitz, Clinical Assistant Professor Eric Cordero-Siy, and Lecturer Gregory Benoit of mathematics education, is showing early-career teachers how to turn that negative trend around and inspire students to see math’s relevance in their daily lives. The Joy & Justice in Mathematics Teaching and Learning Project, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation–funded Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, fully funds BU Wheelock Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) students who commit to becoming educators in a high-need school district for at least two years, mentors them for three years, and researches retention for Black and brown students in education.

“In our teacher preparation programs in general, we noticed that there was a need to support beginning teachers in thinking about how to incorporate joy and justice in the math classroom, thinking about the ways mathematics can be presented that would make students excited, engaged, surprised about mathematics in a way that motivates them and see mathematics as relevant to them and as a tool to understand their lives, their communities, and what’s going on in the world,” Brakoniecki says.

We asked members of BU Wheelock’s mathematics education team to pass along some of the lessons they share with early-career math teachers through the Joy & Justice project.

1. Setting Students Up For Success

No Blank Slates

Most math curricula teachers and students are familiar with are formulaic and rigid, and assume students are not bringing their own skills to the problem. “The students need to be told exactly what to do, then told to practice it, which takes the joy completely out of it, which takes any collaboration out of it, which takes any real thinking out of it,” Salinas says. Instead, instructors should look for the knowledge and experiences students bring into the math classroom. “We should be using those experiences as a form of capital to support them in learning math in a way that is joyful and sense-making and relevant to them,” she adds.

Better Together

Forget hours of silent, solo busy work. Instead, support students to collectively build understanding of mathematics through group work. This happens when students talk with each other, discuss and critique fellow students’ ideas, come to understand their reasoning, and build on their ideas.

Redefine ‘Smart’

Create opportunities for all students to be recognized as mathematical thinkers, not just those who get the right answer. “What is valued in the classroom?” Brakoniecki asks. “If it’s always the answer that’s valued, then only the people who get the final answer are going to be seen as smart. If reasoning is valued, then people who bring different ways of thinking are going to be seen as smart.”

Grade Differently

Design a system of grading that emphasizes student reflection on what they are learning. Too often students view numeric feedback on quizzes and tests as the end of the learning process. Ongoing assessments enable students to recognize what they don’t yet understand and offer them multiple opportunities to show that they can meet a learning objective.

1. Building a Math Curriculum that Works

PRIORITIZE REASONING

Examine the questions your mathematical tasks are asking students. Will those questions allow students to reason and discover new ideas? If students are predominately asked to apply rather than reason, they will come to view the subject as a place where the answer is given the most value and where understanding is of little importance.

TELL A STORY

Consider how mathematical ideas develop across mathematics lessons. A mathematics curriculum can be thought of as an unfolding story, and teachers shape what story is told and impact how students experience the story. Creating compelling stories leaves the audience wondering with anticipation, a technique that is underutilized in the classroom.

TEACH FOR JUSTICE 

Math can teach students to “disrupt the world they live in,” Benoit says. Instructors should reflect on the biases they bring into the classroom, but they can also actively incorporate social justice into their lessons: a word problem about the proportional rate Black and brown drivers are pulled over versus the rest of the population, for instance. This may require instructors to assess the specific cultural context in which they teach and their own knowledge gaps before bringing heavy social topics into the math classroom.

USE MANIPULATIVES

“You remember when they broke out those algebra tiles?” Benoit says. “Math at some point was fun for most. You got to really engage in some level of inquiry, to play with it. Somewhere along the way, we took [the manipulatives] away and we said, ‘Here’s the formula.’” While formulas are certainly necessary, playing with manipulatives can help students understand and make connections across mathematics topics. When possible, provide ample time for students to explore a mathematical idea collaboratively with others using tools, such as a manipulative, which support attention on key ideas and help students make sense of what they’re learning.

3.Developing Mathematical Thinking Through Problem-Solving

BEYOND ‘I DO, WE DO, YOU DO’

Historically, a math lesson follows a predictable arc: the teacher shows students how to work a problem (“I do”), the class works a problem together (“we do”), and then students retreat to a packet or worksheet to practice working problems on their own (“you do”). But mathematical problem-solving is not something that students engage with only after content is presented. Students can learn content by working through genuine problems, discussing the problems and the mathematical thinking used to engage with them (see No Blank Slates).

Problem Solvers and Problem Posers

“Mathematics as a field is something to be made sense of, not something to blindly follow,” Brakoniecki says. Pay attention to how you are supporting students to become both problem solvers and problem posers. Before problems can be solved with mathematics, they must be formulated. And that’s something students can learn to do. If teachers are the only ones who formulate the problems, students never gain experience in how to analyze a situation and create mathematical questions that will help them understand the situation.

Emphasize the Why and the What

Focusing on students’ mathematical reasoning is essential for the classroom. Too often, emphasis is placed on what students should do (the procedures, formulas, and algorithms of mathematics), and little attention is paid to why they might use those techniques. Mathematical problem-solving requires students to use strategies, that is, draw upon their strategic judgment. This means being able to articulate why particular steps might be productive.