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Several Denver Catholic schools implement organic approach to math
By Conor Gilliland
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Photo by Conor Gilliland/DCR |
Last year St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School rolled out a new math curriculum emphasizing the relationship between numbers, as opposed to rote memorization.
The program, called “Math in Focus,” is the American version of a math curriculum originating in Singapore, and is already receiving positive feedback from parents and teachers alike.
“This program took how people think about numbers and really dissected it and created this math program around it,” said Deshaunne Kurulak, first grade teacher at St. Vincent’s.
Fellow St. Vincent’s first grade teacher Sue Gerken explained further.
“First you get them into manipulatives. Then you move from the concrete to the picture, and then you move from that to the critical thinking,” Gerken said. “Every chapter builds on what they already know.”
Manipulatives are objects that the students can touch and manipulate to help them understand the relationships between numbers. These objects include Base 10 Blocks, three dimensional shapes, and number scales all aimed at promoting a visual and conceptual understanding of how numbers work together.
For example, when faced with a problem like “12 plus seven” students do not learn to memorize the answer as 19. Instead they use their blocks to reduce 12 to 10, add two and seven together, and then add that that sum to 10. This transforms the original problem into “10 plus nine.” The reason for this is that ones and tens are easier for our minds to manipulate and students achieve a deeper understanding of the relationship between the numbers when they work with them like this, Gerken said.
Kurulak, explained that after manipulatives the students learn to picture numbers in their minds and work with numbers without the objects.
“Really picture in your head what five looks like,” Kurulak tells her students. “And then if you want to add two, picture what that looks like. Don’t get your fingers out, but make a picture.”
At the end of each chapter the students tackle word problems and are required to write out how and why they solved each problem in the way they did.
“We constantly question them, ‘Why are you getting there?’ and ‘How are you getting there?’” said Gerken.
Gerken asserted that this way of thinking is “Absolutely more natural.”
“It’s amazing to watch them,” she said about her students. “You can see their wheels spinning and they get it. It’s like we’re programmed to learn it this way, and it’s much easier to learn.”
Parents are also impressed with the program.
Charlotte Gillespie, the mother of a second-grader at St. Vincent’s, says her daughter’s math skills have become “innate” as a result of the program.
“We’ll go to get an ice cream cone at Bonnie Brae,” Gillespie said, “and (my daughter) will say, ‘Oh that’s $2.10,’ because she can do it in her head now.”
Other Catholic schools using the program include St. Mary Littleton, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Rose of Lima, St. James, St. Pius X, Christ the King, St. Bernadette, St. Thomas More and St. Louis Louisville, according to Mary Cohen, associate superintendent of Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Schools.
“The program is still new and it will take a couple of years to determine its full effectiveness,” Cohen said, “(but) we do have evidence of improved math scores in some of our schools.”
She added that several other Catholic schools plan to institute the program in the near future.
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