Teachers press the right buttons in math class
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK — The township high school has found a calculated way to improve math instruction.

The implementation of MathForward, a program from Texas Instruments, aligns technology-enriched instruction with the Integrated Basic Skills Algebra I curriculum. It allows a wireless hub to connect to the students' graphing calculators, from which data can be sent to and from the teacher's laptop.

Teacher Lauren Tyszkiewicz said that the students begin with a warm-up exercise that can be sent to them before class, which links the previous day's and current day's lessons. A district lesson introduces new concepts, and then the student-activities phase uses the calculator to show the district lesson.

There are other options, such as a quick pull that asks all of the students a question right on the spot, a screen capture that shows every student's work on the laptop screen and a learn check that makes sure students have mastered the lesson before the next one is begun.

"The navigator makes it very easy to collect a large amount of data in a short amount of time," Tyszkiewicz said. "This keeps students on task and makes sure they are doing what they're supposed to be doing."

The laptop also collects all of the results and creates a spreadsheet with correct and incorrect answers so that if a student gets a question wrong consistently, the teacher can address their thought pattern. It also allows students to have individualized help instead of possibly being embarrassed in front of their classmates.

"The usefulness of a learn check is to see how different people are having different answers and also the thought process in the answer they are choosing," said fellow instructor Amanda Perry.

The program also entails professional development. Mathematics supervisor Diane Galella said that the instructors went through three days of training during the summer, will have five days of training throughout the school year, and will participate in 30 days of on-site coaching by a math educator from Texas Instruments.

The Algebra I class was changed to an 80-minute block period in 2004. MathForward was added to the curriculum last year.

Contact Jennifer Amato at

jamato@gmnews.com.