Making Math Class Relevant to Real Life

“When would I ever use this?”

It’s a question that high school and middle school math teachers have heard many times.

Some educators think it’s because math instruction is stuck in a rut. Procedural, boring and, in some cases, “totally outdated,” math lessons just don’t seem to pull students in.

Solving this motivation problem is tricky. It also connects to other issues, such as the rigid class sequences that some experts warn block certain students from advancing in math and that exclude courses like data science that would be useful for students’ future careers.

In middle and high school courses, it’s really difficult to connect math to the real world, says Lindsey Henderson, policy director of math for the nonprofit ExcelinEd. Students plug away at tough procedures, such as geometric proofs, but don’t know why they are doing it. Henderson previously worked for the Utah Department of Education, where she noted that math is the biggest stumbling block for students trying to get a high school diploma.

It’s about time that schools dragged math into the modern world, so that it imparts useful skills, Henderson says.

Around the country, students’ math performance is in a slump. Middle and high school math are also in the midst of a shake-up, as states and professional organizations seek to alter rigid “pathways” that move a student through traditional courses that can feel uninspiring.

Some think that making careers the focal point of math class can help.

Will Learn for Jobs

Experts have spotlighted the need to change high school graduation requirements for math, focusing them more tightly on skills that will translate to better working lives for students, an approach that will emphasize data literacy, economics and financial literacy.

Adding applied math courses is also on the agenda. A new open letter signed by more than 250 company CEOs calls for states to require students to take courses in computer science and artificial intelligence, claiming that that kind of training can boost graduates’ job prospects and future earnings.

While most everyone agrees that students need to take math through Algebra I, or an equivalent, how far a student has to go to earn a diploma differs by state. That includes how job skills play into math paths for students.

For example, Maryland’s state board has flagged that it wants every student “career ready” by the end of 10th grade. It implies that everyone should take the same math through that grade, and it alters the traditional sequence of math courses by condensing algebra and geometry — usually spread over three years — into two, says Henderson, of ExcelinEd. It’s allowed schools to open up competing career pathways in the back end of high school, whether students pursue calculus for science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers or instead learn data analytics or quantitative reasoning.

Students more immediately see the relevance of courses that relate to careers of interest, particularly data science, which allows students to interrogate data with real-world questions, Henderson says.

When students establish a career identity, the material they learn that relates to that identity becomes more personally meaningful than just passing a test or earning a graduation credit, Christine Rodriguez told EdSurge in an email interview. She is the director of curriculum for NAF, a nonprofit that is trying to make education more career-focused. But the high turnover rate for teachers and the cadence at which they must prepare students for state testing forces educators to rely on overly procedural materials, she argued. And until classes connect to students’ career aspirations, many students won’t be interested in math.

Additionally, with the value of college under scrutiny, there’s extra interest these days in whether K-12 education prepares students for work.

But how are curriculum publishers responding to this insistence on career readiness?

Solving for ‘X’

Some curriculum publishers say they recognize the weight of the problem.

Math lessons still often lack the deep thinking and collaboration that are essential for real-world applications, says Steven Shadel, chief knowledge officer for math at Great Minds, the publisher of Eureka Math and Eureka Math Squared.

Shadel supports revamping math courses around careers. In his own experience as a high school teacher, before he joined a publishing company, Shadel noticed that students were passionate about robotics and computer science but were indifferent toward traditional courses.

The problem is particularly notable toward the end of K-12. Middle schools tend to rely more on high-quality curriculum resources, Shadel says. But in high school, teachers more typically create their own curriculum, despite a lack of training how to design curriculum. The result: high school teachers often expend their time creating classroom resources instead of developing a rich classroom culture that pulls students in, he adds.

Indeed, good teachers are really the factor that motivates students and imparts the value of math, says Julie Grove, vice president of product management for core curriculum at HMH, one of the largest textbook publishers in the country. While teaching through real-world examples allows students to tackle messy problems that feel relevant, which helps build their desire to learn math, it’s still vital for teachers to have training opportunities to help them deliver materials well, she says.

The burden does not only belong to math teachers, though. Career connections ought to be incorporated into the whole school system and not just the math class, Shadel says, so that math teachers don’t shoulder all the pressure to make those exciting connections for students. He stresses the need for more collaboration between career and technical education programs and the math classroom.

For instance, a CTE educator showing students how geometric concepts allow for 3D design could point kids toward a career they might later pursue and gets their buy-in to learn.

The trouble may be spreading a model that blends math with career and technical education to classrooms around the country, many of which have large class sizes, overworked teachers and students who struggle with basic math concepts.

Building trust and relationships in the classroom can help in low-performing districts, Shadel argues. But it is a challenge, he admits.

Adding It All Up

One high school thinks it may have figured out how to pull it off.

At Hatch Valley High School, located about two-and-a-half hours south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, students were not excelling in arithmetic. At the remote and rural school, the whole student population is low-income, and 97 percent of students are Hispanic.

“We had to do something different with our math instruction,” Michael Chavez, the superintendent of Hatch Valley Public Schools, told EdSurge.

The district was recently in the middle of expanding its career and technical training programs. So it made sense to also reevaluate math instruction, according to Chavez.

Leaders looked into Pathway2Careers, a company that, true to its name, focuses on connecting learning to jobs. Developed over five years with a $10 million budget, their solution includes a labor market navigator that lets students explore data for specific careers and job-focused math curriculum.

For a lesson on geometric theorems and angles, for example, a teacher might start by explaining to students carpentry, exploring the ins and outs of the profession and incorporating local data from the labor market so students can see the job outlook before tackling the math. Carpentry, then, becomes a specific application of the angles and theorems, which Pathway2Careers leaders hope will also boost student motivation to learn.

This approach is especially important in rural areas or other places where there aren’t plenty of attractive job options, so that students can prepare for relevant economic opportunities, says Joseph Goins, CEO of Pathway2Careers.
Right now, Nebraska, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Wyoming all use pieces of the Pathway2Careers model, though not always the math curriculum, according to Goins.

Currently, they cover about 650 career options for students to explore and for teachers to use in algebra and geometry, according to a spreadsheet sent to EdSurge. And although historically focused on middle and high school, the model will reach back into elementary school, as the company is developing a "bridge" course meant to sharpen the skills students need before entering pre-algebra.

Many of the places that adopt this model are eager to try something new, often pulled in by the dual promise of lifting math performance for students and linking them to jobs, Goins says.

As for Hatch Valley High School, Goins reports, students there saw improvement in test scores. Students who use the curriculum across the state also demonstrated increased interest in career and technical training and STEM careers after the school adopted its new jobs-focused curriculum, according to figures shown to EdSurge by Goins.