The future elementary school teachers that Mark Montgomery works with at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, share a common fear:
Most of them are 鈥渆xtremely anxious鈥� about math.
鈥淎 lot of them will identify that they want to teach K-2, they don鈥檛 want to teach a tested grade level. And part of that is that they think the content is easier,鈥� said Montgomery, an associate professor of education who teaches math-methods courses. It鈥檚 a misconception that he works to counter.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 necessarily understand the depth of that foundation that they鈥檙e preparing kindergarten students [with], and how that builds throughout the rest of their math education,鈥� he said.
This idea鈥攖hat skills like counting, adding, and multiplying aren鈥檛 the easy stuff in math, but rather form a critical foundation that must be well taught鈥攗nderpins a new, multi-university initiative to improve educator preparation in early numeracy instruction.
The network, launched by the nonprofit Deans for Impact, starts a year-long collaboration between Stephen F. Austin State University and two other schools, Sam Houston State University and Texas A&M University-Texarkana. Together, they prepare about 3,000 teachers annually.
Plummeting math scores on national and international assessments, post-pandemic, demonstrate a need for action, said Amber Willis, vice president of program at Deans for Impact.
鈥淭here is this desire to go back to the source,鈥� she said, referencing students鈥� earliest exposure to the subject.
This focus on the building blocks of math knowledge echoes the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement, a push to align beginning reading instruction with evidence-based practice. State legislation on this issue, mandating changes to literacy approaches, often cites the same rationale: Students can鈥檛 develop higher-level reading skills if they don鈥檛 have a firm foundation.
鈥淢athematics knowledge is highly cumulative in nature,鈥� said Heather Peske, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and policy group that has reviewed teacher-preparation programs since 2006. (Peske is not involved in the the new network.)
Students鈥� ability to learn new concepts is 鈥渉ighly dependent鈥� on their mastery of what has come before, she said.
Identifying areas for improvement; filling instructional gaps in math
Currently, elementary educator-preparation programs don鈥檛 devote enough time to math content, according to NCTQ鈥檚 reviews.
The group鈥檚 standard of at least 150 instructional hours, or 10 credits in math鈥�105 hours in content and 45 in pedagogy鈥攚as developed by an expert advisory panel, taking into account recommendations from national math educator groups.
On average , undergraduate teaching programs only spend 85 hours on math content, though they exceeded the recommendation for pedagogy with an average of 49 credit hours.
One goal of the Deans for Impact network is to understand how these trends map onto these three Texas universities: Where do current course content and clinical teaching experiences lack adequate focus in early-numeracy instruction? Where are there opportunities to strengthen what鈥檚 offered? Teacher-candidates in these programs will also take a numeracy assessment, Willis said.
Eventually, all of this information-gathering will inform the development of instructional 鈥渕odules,鈥� aimed to shore up areas of greatest need, that university faculty can use in their courses. Math faculty, education faculty, university supervisors, and some K-12 educators are involved in the project.
Wading into discussions about best practice for early math instruction inevitably dredges up ideological questions. Is it better for teachers to focus on teaching operations and offering students lots of practice, so that they become comfortable and fluent? Or should teachers ensure that students understand the math concepts, like whole numbers, regrouping, and place value, that underlie these procedures?
Deans for Impact is trying to avoid this either-or framing.
鈥淲e are thinking about trying to balance inquiry-based instruction with explicit instructional strategies,鈥� Willis said.
The organization has published a , which covers evidence-based approaches to teaching counting, arithmetic, and abstract knowledge of mathematical concepts.
So far, Willis said, participants have already surfaced some areas for improvement. At one university, for example, math and education faculty realized that their courses weren鈥檛 optimally scheduled. Introduction to elementary math was taught freshman year, first semester, but those same students didn鈥檛 take a math-methods course until senior year.
But Montgomery, the math methods professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, has less technical鈥攊f perhaps thornier鈥攇oals in mind for the network. He hopes the work helps him address with his students their underlying fears that they鈥檙e bad at math, and their assumption that they can avoid it in the earliest grades.
The first few classes are 鈥渕ore therapy鈥� than math, he said, as he tries to get future elementary teachers to open up to the subject.
鈥淚 think it is incredibly important that they understand, for lack of a better term, that kindergarten isn鈥檛 the easy way out,鈥� he said.
