Nazareth Area educators to learn new hands-on style to teaching math

FROM THE EXPRESS TIMES

Nazareth Area Intermediate School math teachers this week will learn about a new concept in teaching algebra designed to increase test scores, hold attention spans and help students advance to higher learning.

Allentown-based Borenson and Associates, the parent company of Hands-On Equations, will be training about 20 teachers during a six-hour workshop called “Making Algebra Child’s Play.”


Since 1990, the workshop has been taught to more than 50,000 educators nationally and about 50 districts statewide have been using the concept in one or more classrooms, said Henry Borenson, a former Pennsylvania math teacher who designed the program.



View full sizeExpress-Times Photo | MATT SMITHDale Beltzner, a teacher at Joseph P. Liberati Intermediate School, and Zach Ambron, 11, look at a projection as they participate in an Algebra program that uses physical pieces to help younger children learn equations during a sixth-grade math class in the Southern Lehigh School District. The new algebra curriculum is being implemented in the Nazareth Area School District.
The program is designed to enable students to solve equations through the use of hands-on kits, which include a laminated board with a scale printed on it and various pawns and cubes.

The cubes have numerals on them and the pawns represent variables. Students are then asked to balance the equations by placing the pawns and cubes on the boards.

Michael Roth, the district's assistant superintendent of educational programs and a former middle school principal, said many school officials have been involved in implementing the program, including the curriculum director, the special education director and three math specialists.

"We are excited to have our teachers participate in this professional development opportunity," Roth said. "(School officials) have been instrumental in identifying what will help our students move to the next level in terms of their mathematical understanding. We are so appreciative of the participating teachers, as they are truly dedicated to learning new strategies to support student learning.”

During Tuesday’s workshop, Nazareth educators teaching grades four through six will learn how implementing the new teaching method could lead to higher test scores.

In a study of fourth- and fifth-graders in one school district, 8 percent of students correctly solved an equation on a pre-test compared to 87 percent on a post-test after they had learned the Hands-On Equations concept.

Nazareth Intermediate School students will be learning the concept shortly following the workshop, said Heather Harter, spokeswoman for Borenson and Associates.

The workshop is recommended for teachers in grades three through nine, teachers of special education students in grades four through 12 and teachers of high school students struggling with algebra.


“It introduces algebra at an early age, at a game-like pace,” Harter said. “It builds self-esteem and moves them to a higher level of math at a later grade level.”

The Hands-On Equations concept already is familiar to about 725 students in grades four through six at Joseph P. Liberati Intermediate School in the Southern Lehigh School District. Sixth-grade math teacher Dale Beltzner said he has seen longer attention spans and more enthusiasm in his classroom since the concept was launched.

The concept, Beltzner said, allows his students to tangibly pick up pieces and place them on boards rather than read something in a textbook or jot down notes off a chalkboard. In Beltzner’s class, he regularly calls children up to the front of the room to show the rest of the class how they solved the problem with their kits.

“With this concept, we’re not just using our eyes and ears, we’re now using our hands.” Beltzner said. “It’s definitely valuable for these students. We see kids understanding it more, they’re actively more engaged in the process of learning.”

At the start of this school year, Beltzner said Hands-On Equations had been formally written into the school year's math instruction in all grades.

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