THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606190128
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 68 lines
Two Chesapeake math teachers have received national recognition for their teaching prowess.
Dan Mulligan, 45, of Great Bridge High School and Becky L. Alexander, 48, of Butts Road Primary School were among six Virginians awarded the Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence in Math and Science this year.
According to Debbie Haver, the math supervisor for Chesapeake schools, Mulligan and Alexander employ a method of teaching that gives students an understanding of how mathematics affects day-to-day life and focuses less on repetitive drilling.
``These are the pioneers,'' added Haver. ``These are the best of the best.''
After 20 years in New York schools, Dan Mulligan ``wanted to shake things up'' in his teaching career. He came to Chesapeake schools four years ago.
``I got what I desired here,'' said Mulligan. That was more remedial and lower-level classes. A challenge to Mulligan, who began lecturing and handing out information sheets to his students while at Indian River High School.
They didn't respond.
``One day I stopped what I was doing and said, `What's wrong?' '' said Mulligan. ``They said, `We've been doing the same fractions since sixth grade with the same work sheets. If we didn't learn it in eighth grade, what makes you think we'll learn it in ninth?' ''
Mulligan created labs where the students would discover for themselves. Gone were boring lectures. In came a hands-on approach.
``Now they teach me,'' said Mulligan. ``I tour them through, but they do all the discovery.''
One such class involved fractions.
Mulligan gave his students an application: completing a recipe.
He explained: ``I told them, `You see how this serves six? I need it to serve four.' They took each ingredient and adjusted.''
But while a word problem might have ended there, Mulligan didn't.
``I set it up with the home economics teacher that my kids and the home economics kids created teams,'' said Mulligan. ``My kids taught the home ec kids how to adjust the recipes using what we'd learned. . . .The same kids who were passed out cold three weeks ago were really into it.''
Mulligan was selected the Virginia Council Secondary Teacher of the Year in 1995, for his work at Indian River and Great Bridge.
He is leaving Great Bridge to head Hickory High School's math department this fall.
Becky Alexander's teaching philosophy changed after attending graduate classes at Old Dominion University that delved into the philosophy of how math integrates into day-to-day life.
``So many traditional teachers are rule-driven, memory-oriented,'' said the Great Bridge resident and mother of two. ``That's the way it used to be because we didn't know other ways to do it.''
The philosophy she believes says that it is better for children to construct their knowledge by finding the best method toward problem solving themselves by being thrown into a problem and asked how they would solve it.
For some problems, children were broken into teams and given a problem, which the team worked on. Each group delivered its solution and how they drew it.
``They argue back and forth and those who disagree must explain their thinking,'' said Alexander. ``Some will say that they disagree with themselves. They change their mind.
``This allows the children to invent their own ways to solve problems.''
Both teachers agree that if classes become more interactive throughout the grades, better math students will result.
Mulligan said, ``Companies don't pay people to parrot things back; they want critical thinking. School used to destroy this. It killed creativity.''
Haver said creativity is the future for teaching math in Chesapeake. by CNB