By: Jeff Milgram
Decades ago, the concerns regarding the success of the American education system focused on "Why Johnny can’t read."
Today, the worry is "Why Johnny can’t do advanced mathematics"
"There is a crisis in the way math is being taught," said James King of the University of Washington, a site director of the Park City Mathematics Institute’s summer program for math teachers at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. "We’re losing math teachers, and student performance is low."
If these problems are not addressed, Professor King said, jobs requiring advanced math skills will not go to Americans.
If the crisis is as bad as Professor King said, the participants of the three-week Park City Mathematics Institute are the shock troops in the fight against math illiteracy. The program ended Sunday.
"They’re mostly high school teachers, from a variety of schools, all interested in deepening their understanding of math and teaching," Professor King said. "They’re very good teachers already. They just want to be better teachers."
The program brings together more than 200 high school teachers, college and university faculty, math-education researchers, undergraduate and graduate students and research mathematicians. There is follow-up during the year at Rider University in Lawrence.
Phillip A. Griffiths, director of the Institute for Advanced Study and a mathematician himself, thinks the program works.
"PCMI’s teacher graduates have devised and applied new methods of teaching and are beginning to promote reforms in secondary education," he said. "Its scholar graduates have published papers, collaborated on research and advanced the areas of mathematics in which they work."
PCMI also includes a mentoring program for women as a way to encourage women to stay in math education and to help participants overcome some of the obstacles that have discouraged women from pursuing careers in mathematics.
The model for the program at the institute was begun in 1990 by the National Science Foundation, which sponsored several three-year experimental regional institutes in the "vertical integration" of teaching, research and applications in geometry. The idea was to bring together researchers and educators in a program that centered around how math can best be taught and learned.
The institute at the University of Utah at Park City, Utah, was one of the most successful. In 1993, the Institute for Advanced Study – long known as a leader in math research and one of the foremost international centers for theoretical science, advanced math and the humanities – was asked to take over the sponsorship of the Park City Mathematics Institute. The next year, the Institute for Advanced Study became its permanent home.
This was the first year the summer program was held at the institute and it will be held at Park City next year, according to Georgia Whidden, public affairs officer of the institute.
Professor King said the goal of the summer program is to give the teachers the "experience not only to use the textbooks but to take charge of the mathematics."
The teachers spent about five hours each day doing classwork.
Cherylanne Moffett, who teaches geometry and trigonometry at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, said the summer program provides teachers with a ‘huge network of people" who they can e-mail for class ideas.
"You’re always looking for new ways to prepare material," Ms. Moffett said. "It’s very easy to teach the same thing over and over again. It teaches burnout early."
Dori Pietrowicz, who teaches algebra, geometry and trigonometry at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, said the program provides a "network of resources for the future and tons of fun things."
All teachers, but especially math teachers, face common problems – "the same struggle of dealing with 40-minute blocks and bells all day long," Ms. Pietrowicz said.
The program is free to the teachers, who received room, board and a stipend, Professor King said.
