David Staples: New program could be solution to math crisis in Alberta schools

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We could be at the beginning of the end to our math crisis in Alberta schools.

My optimism springs out of the new Math Minds program from Jump Math and the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education. Results in pilot projects shows much promise.

What is the crisis? In the past 20 years, international tests show Alberta’s percentage of top math students has dropped. More ominously, our percentages have doubled when it comes to students who lack a basic knowledge of math.


Since the late 1990s, elementary school teachers have been increasingly encouraged and required to guide children as they explore multiple strategies to attempt simple math problems. At the same time, the memorization of times tables and the diligent practice of standard arithmetic has been downplayed.

The big changes mixed with poor results have led to the so-called Math Wars between educational traditionalists and progressives here.

The beauty of the new Math Minds program led by Prof. Brent Davis of the Werklund School is it takes the best from both ways of teaching math.

Based on proven insights from cognitive science into how students learn, Math Minds focuses on curbing math anxiety, building up confidence and developing a deep conceptual understanding of math. It does so by breaking math concepts into small steps, having the children diligently practise and master those steps, and continually assesses them. It moves away from group work and from students trying to create their own math strategies, two practices that Davis says have no backing in educational research as being effective.

The curricular material for Math Minds comes from the celebratedJump Math program developed by Toronto-based mathematician John Mighton. The Werklund School works with teachers to improve their teaching technique. Schools in both the Calgary Catholic and the Golden Hills school districts have participated. Early results show significant improvement, with the students least able in math showing the most improvement.

Davis says math teachers need to know how to break down math concepts into small and comprehensible steps so that they can help children grasp arithmetic. “One of my mantras is the good teacher is the expert who can think like a novice, who is able to see what little tidbit the kid is tripping over.”

Some accuse the Math Minds teachers of “spoon-feeding” information to students, but that’s not what is happening, Davis says. “They still have to notice all these things themselves and they still have to put it together into a coherent concept. You’re increasing the likelihood they are actually going to assemble it properly.”

Not all teachers in the pilot schools have been keen to take on a new way of teaching math. Even the teachers who have been keen have sometimes struggled to learn the Math Minds way of teaching.

In the Catholic board, teachers got a great deal of instruction that helped them achieve strong results, but if Math Minds is going to help an entire province of students, it will have to do without that kind of expensive and intensive assistance. With that in mind, the new pilot project in the Golden Hills district has less ongoing input for teachers from Werklund instructors.

Werklund is now developing online resources that professors hope will give teachers enough support to proceed on their own with the program, Davis says. Davis also wants to develop a formal course to teach Math Minds and to help teachers critically analyze themselves and develop teaching technique.

Michelle Rushford, assistant principal at Wheatland Elementary School in Strathmore, a 29-year veteran teacher and passionate math teacher, is one convert.

“There are so many things about the Jump Math approach that have been successful in our classrooms,” she says. “There’s just no denying that the overall philosophy of this program is really excellent. There are approaches that enable students to feel so much more successful … We’ve seen children who have otherwise developed some very closed mindsets about math really blossom in the area of numeracy.”

Rushford’s assessment should be music to the ears of all educators, especially those who focus on the social justice aspect of public education, its ability to help raise up students from difficult backgrounds to become powerhouse students.

We’ve been failing all our students and especially our most vulnerable students with our current way of teaching math. If Math Minds can help reverse that trend, it’s brilliant news for all.