From Staff Reports
PEARCY -- Lake Hamilton High School math teacher Brian Leonard was chosen as an Arkansas representative by the Southern Regional Education Board to assist in developing a Math Ready course.
Leonard teaches Advanced Placement Calculus, AP Statistics and pre-calculus at Lake Hamilton. He was joined by other educators from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, West Virginia and New York to develop the SREB Readiness Course.
"Mr. Leonard has proven that he is a leader in the field of mathematics through his determination in making math accessible to all students through his work in the Math Ready course," said Kristi Anderson, Lake Hamilton School District director of instructional services and federal programs.
"We are very fortunate to have him teaching at Lake Hamilton and know that his excellence in teaching will impact our students for many years to come."
The SREB has been working for two decades in the arena of implementing high school courses to help students transition into post-secondary study. The Math Ready -- Ready for College-Level Math -- course emphasizes understanding of math concepts rather than just memorizing procedures.
"The goal of creating this course was to address the concern of students failing college algebra," Leonard said. "Throughout this process, I learned by looking at the data that the struggles in math are very similar from state to state and that there is a common goal of better preparing students for being successful in a college course.
"This course is a great first step in a long process of bettering our students. This process is not complete, but it is definitely headed in the right direction to help our students succeed."
Math Ready students learn the context behind the procedure, such as why to use a certain formula or methods to solve a problem, to equip them with higher-order thinking to apply math skills, functions and concepts in different situations. The course is designed for those students who need a transitional course in order to be successful in College Algebra.
It is also designed to help students in high school to master numeracy skills they need for more rigorous learning in career-training programs and/or college. The effort was undertaken by a grant from the Gates Foundation.
Teachers from the previously named states met and looked at data to see why students nationwide were failing college algebra. After looking at the data, they created a course to target the weak areas the data indicated.
The initial classroom version of the SREB Readiness Courses are available for any state, district, school or teacher to download online, free of charge. SREB plans to update future versions of the courses based on feedback from classroom teachers.
The eight units in Math Ready are exponentials, quadratics, equations, measurements, number operations, systems, linear functions and statistics.
School on 03/01/2015