THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408130280
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
Imagine you're a high school math teacher trying to explain how to calculate a ``point of attraction.'' To find the solution, you offer this equation: X is a line and Y is equal to the function of X.
You tell your class to get out pencils and graphing paper. Students moan. It takes an entire period to find the answer, and most of the kids can't make a connection between the exercise and the real world.
Those days, however, are numbered.
If a group of education evangelists from Norfolk Public Schools and Old Dominion University succeeds in spreading the gospel, mathematics and science students may never be taught that way again.
For the past two weeks, members of the Norfolk team, VirginiA Network for Technology - VANT for short - have huddled in classrooms at Maury High School with 51 teachers from as far as North Dakota to demonstrate how calculators and computer software are revolutionizing classroom teaching.
By punching a few keys on a TI-82 graphing calculator, for instance, a point of attraction can be as quick and easy to find as Nauticus or the Oceanfront.
In the age of the information superhighway, these educators are convinced that old methods of teaching math by rote do not equip students with the skills to navigate the modern world.
``Technology is a tool, much like a slide rule was, only this is more sophisticated,'' said Marcia L. Tharp, assistant professor of educational curriculum and instruction at ODU and a VANT instructor. ``Teachers don't have to spend time making graphs and doing calculations.''
Since VANT debuted three years ago, the group has trained nearly 500 teachers. Knowledge has spread exponentially, as enlightened teachers carry the message back to their schools.
This year, teachers from nine Virginia school districts - including Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Portsmouth - and three other states participated in the seminar, which ended Friday.
``The teachers we train act as specialists in their schools,'' Tharp said. ``So it's a domino effect.''
Researchers have discovered that calculators and related classroom technology serve as a ``conceptual amplifier.''
``It opens the door for some students who ordinarily would not be able to do algebra,'' Tharp said of the graphing calculator, which has more memory and power than some computers. ``It connects them to the real world. It is a motivator.''
Students using a TI-82, manufactured by Texas Instruments, can create line graphs that are displayed on a window screen.
During training sessions last week, teachers were shown some of the real-life applications - graphing the relationship between fat intake and calories in fast food, for example, or tracking levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The calculator speeds up the work, giving teachers more time to show students how to analyze data, draw conclusions and use it to solve problems, educators said.
VANT instructors, including high school teachers at Maury, Granby and Lake Taylor, demonstrated one item of technology that won't be on the market until next month - a hand-held ``computer based laboratory,'' called a CBL.
The $200 unit, the size of a police radio, is coupled with probes that detect such things as motion, temperature and pH levels.
Used with an overhead view screen and graphing calculator, teachers will be able to conduct experiments that vividly illustrate the relationship among physics, chemistry and mathematical concepts.
School systems that resist the use of technology risk being pounded into oblivion by the wave of the future, educators warned.
Changes in education already have begun.
The College Board, for example, this year allowed students to use calculators on the SAT, a college admissions exam. In 1995, for the first time, students taking advanced placement calculus will be required to show their proficiency on a calculator to earn college credit.
Many textbook firms now offer math books with lessons geared toward calculator use.
``You can't resist them too much longer,'' said VANT instructor Kevin Simms, who will teach math at Maury High this year.
Proponents acknowledge the danger of kids becoming overly dependent on technology. But teachers, they say, can continue to test basic math skills by requiring students to explain how they used the calculator to solve a problem.
Some teachers have fought the move toward calculators and other technology because the change ``takes them out of their comfort zone,'' said Denise Walston, who this month begins as Norfolk schools' math specialist.
Helping teachers make the transition is a key reason why Norfolk schools and ODU teamed up to form VANT.
Norfolk now uses ``Explorer'' calculators in elementary schools to teach youngsters such basic math functions as multiplication and subtraction. Availability of the more sophisticated graphing calculators is still spotty in middle and high schools across south Hampton Roads.
But a growing number are offering students greater access to calculators and computer technology.
In Norfolk, for instance, each of the city's five high schools maintains 20 of the year-old $85 TI-82 calculators for students in algebra and other college-prep math courses.
The new Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach expects a shipment of 200 graphing calculators before school begins next month - enough to outfit every math classroom from pre-algebra to calculus, said Jeffrey J. Steckroth, chairman of the math department at Ocean Lakes and a student at the VANT seminar.
When students reach Algebra II in Norfolk, they are encouraged to buy their own calculators.
``It's a portable computer for less that the price of trendy pair of tennis shoes,'' said Ellen S. Hook, a Granby math teacher and VANT instructor. ILLUSTRATION: JIMMY WALKER/Staff
Changing the way math is taught
Verle Walters, an instructor with the VirginiA Network for
Technology, right, shows the tricks of using high-tech calculators
to teachers Tom McFeely of Norfolk Vocational Tech Center and Diane
Luttrell of Middlesex High. The calculators could make teaching
complex mathematical concepts much easier.
by CNB