SAINT CLAIR - The Saint Clair Area School District will be adding another computer-based initiative for students in the fall called ST Math from MIND Research Institute.
On Tuesday, Eric Pryor, director of education services for the east region for MIND Research Institute, was at the school to demonstrate the software that takes a new approach to teaching difficult math concepts and the students think they're playing a video game.
MIND Research Institute, based in Irvine, Calif., is a neuroscience and education research-based, nonprofit corporation.
"ST Math is a program that actually takes K-8 mathematics skills and turns it into a visual learning opportunity," Pryor said. "Math can get very symbolic with numbers and operators can be complex."
While the school district will be using the software on netbooks and laptops, which it has carts that go from room to room, he demonstrated the software on an Apple iPad.
The software works on any device, according to Superintendent Kendy K. Hinkel. She said that while netbooks are cost effective for now, the district might look into iPads in the future.
Hinkel said Tuesday that with 600 students, the school has enough netbooks for one device for every three students, so the carts are on a schedule and are used every minute of the day.
They are used for other computer-based initiatives at the school as well, including myON reader from Capstone Publishers, an ebook library with fiction and non-fiction books, and Fast ForWord from Scientific Learning that helps develop reading fluency and comprehension.
Pryor first showed the program at a third grade level, which was an introduction to multiplication concepts.
He said that in the program, students progress through a series of levels and at first they only have access to the lowest levels until they master that content and then move forward.
"The standard problem that students are presented with in every puzzle and exercise is that they've got to get a character, this little penguin, Gigi, from the left side of the screen to the right and there's something in their way," he said.
While students are introduced to a number of characters in the program, the first problem showed a dog and students had to select how many boots the dog would wear, which would be four, since it's a four-legged animal.
Once they master this, the next level changes in complexity, showing two dogs or objects, then they have to say how many shoes they would need now.
Pryor then jumped up to Level 4 and while the easier skill levels were completely visual, the program starts to add in symbols, until you get to the highest level that has no visuals except the numbers.
"The informative feedback is huge in this," he said. "It's a learning opportunity that kids have with certainly involvement and coaching from teachers to figure out and solve these puzzles on their own. A mistake or an error is just as valuable as eventually finding that success. It's a way of them finally coming to that ah-ha moment and really understanding what this multiplication concept is."
ST Math helps teach math concepts for kindergarten through middle school levels and uses the same way of teaching for all concepts.
Pryor also demonstrated using the program at a middle school level to learn how to solve equations, which worked the same way.
"These are much higher level concepts," he said. "There are simple visual puzzles that allow kids to grasp a concept that in the numeric sense can be very difficult to really see and understand."
According to information provided by Pryor with results from 2010-11, the program has produced positive results in schools across the county.
It also stated that elementary schools in the Santa Ana Unified School District in Santa Ana, Calif., went from 35 percent proficiency in math in 2005 to 67 percent proficiency in 2011, thanks to using ST Math.
While Saint Clair piloted the program last April, it is the first school in the county to use it, but Pryor said there are many other school districts in the state that also use it.
According to Hinkel, ST Math won't replace regular textbooks, but will be another tool to use along with them.
"My belief is that over time, it's going to be the presentation and practice piece and you're going to see the textbook come as additional practice," she said. "This program visually provides every mathematical concept that you can't recreate. A really great math teacher will show kids, but they can't animate it."
Another advantage of using the program is that teachers can use it in conjunction with SMART boards.
Hinkel said that they can demonstrate the concepts and multiplication to kids in a big group, then the students can go back and see similar examples individually or in small groups.
"It allows the teacher to go from always being the conveyor of information to a more coaching role in smaller groups," she said. "If kids struggle, the teacher can pull back into some areas that they're struggling with until they hit mastery. No one in the room knows and each is working at their own level."
She also said it bridges that gap visually for students, something that's important since a lot of their students learn that way and they will be encouraged to talk to each other and work together as there may be more than one answer or way to solve a program.
Students will be able to access ST Math from home, but will mostly be using it in the classroom with someone coaching them.
The school board approved the program at the March meeting, which will have no budget impact.
Being an expensive program, Hinkel previously said she worked with the company to push the cost down to work within the margins of the federal money the district has available.
Instead of paying for it in one large payment, it will be paid for over two fiscal years by using money from the first fiscal year, about a $20,000 payment, then there's a $14,000 to $16,000 payment the second year, which money for the next fiscal year will be available.