Math teachers go back to school

Erica Johnson

Friday, June 22, 2001 | 3:53 a.m.

School is out, but Douglas Slag, a local high school math teacher, was in class Wednesday, learning innovative ways to teach algebra to his own students this fall.

"Many of the kids I teach come to high school missing most of the fundamentals they need to succeed in math," said Slag, a teacher at Centennial High School. "I have some really great students. But in general, the math scores in Clark County are pretty bad."

Slag is one of 70 teachers from Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln and Nye counties who participated this week in the Exeter Math Institute, a summer workshop for high school and middle school math teachers held at the Advanced Technologies Academy, 2501 Vegas Drive.

A representative of the Clark County School District said math scores on SAT and ACT college entrance exams have risen in Clark County over the past five years and are just above the national average. But many teachers at this workshop said their students -- not necessarily the college-bound ones taking those tests -- are lagging.

They said they hope the institute will teach them new ways to help their students.

The weeklong program, which brings experienced math teachers to counties across the country, is designed to show math instructors in urban school districts new ways to teach their subject.

The institute was created 10 years ago by Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school in Exeter, N.H.

The institute's workshop in Las Vegas, its first in the state, was sponsored by Clark County's Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program, a project established to raise student achievement by increasing the knowledge and skills of teachers. The program sent invitations to math teachers in each county, Bill Hanlon, director of the program, said.

Hanlon said the workshop focuses on problem-solving through traditional algebra, geometry and technology. Teachers rotate to five classes throughout the day, each lasting one hour and fifteen minutes.

Hanlon said program coordinators planned to limit enrollment to 60 teachers.

"But the response was overwhelming," he said. "Within the first two days over 70 teachers applied.'

Five math teachers from Exeter taught the workshops. Their room, board and expenses were paid by a grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, a foundation dedicated to improving education in urban areas.

"We met with the Clark County School District and customized the curriculum for the needs of this area," Irwin Kaufman, mathematics consultant for the foundation, said. "So this program was created especially for this city."

Kaufman said the institute follows up with school districts they visit by coming back and holding additional classes or workshops.

Eric Bergofsky, an Exeter math teacher for 24 years, on Wednesday reviewed with his class of 15 teachers some of the quadratic functions involved in Algebra I and II.

The teachers, dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts, worked out problems on the board and participated in classroom discussion.

"This is the type of thing you want to do with your kids," Bergofsky said, before the teachers broke to use mathamatical software on classroom computers. "Ask open-ended questions. Get feedback. Give credit to kids who come up with different ideas."

Bergofsky said the institute instructors have an integrated, problem-solving approach.

"We understand these teachers have curriculums, textbooks, and standards to follow,' he said. "But we want them to explore alternate ways of doing things. That way, they have that much more background."

Judy Bloore, a math teacher for 21 years and a student this week, is coming back to the Clark County School District from Nye County to teach at Monaco Middle School, a school still under construction near Lake Mead and Nellis boulevards.

She said implementing the techniques she learned will be challenging. "The students are very behind," Bloore said."I will be teaching eighth graders next year. But I've been told that they are at a fifth or sixth grade level in math."

Program coordinators said the program has been successful and they expect to hold another workshop in Clark County next summer.