Teens praise online algebra lessons
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The school has enough textbooks, but the students don't need them in Yvette McDonald's algebra class at Kahuku High and Intermediate School.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
And that's a good thing.
Kahuku students, from left, Brendan Melemai, Daesha Johnson and James Bautista use computers instead of books in algebra class. The interactive computer program was developed last year by Honolulu Community College.
It's because her students in grades 9 through 12 learn math not with books but through an interactive computer program developed last year by Honolulu Community College and being piloted in four Hawai'i high schools, a middle school and a community college.
With this new approach, the hope is to boost high school math scores and cut down on expensive and time-consuming remedial math in college.
"It's pretty good," said 17-year-old James Bautista Jr., peering intently at the algebra equation on the screen before choosing the correct answer from several suggestions.
"Sometimes teachers make it harder than it really is. If I see it first and try to understand it myself without the teacher dictating, it's kind of better. When I'm pressured into it, I'm not good. I'm better at this where I can take my time."
While it's too soon to know if this online algebra class will improve high school math scores, end-of-semester assessment testing at HCC in mid-May will show how it's working among college students. Assessment testing will be done in high schools next year.
"They should have this at Waialua," Bautista said. "I failed math at Waialua twice — algebra and geometry. The teacher's a cool guy, but he's so quick I had a hard time keeping up with him."
"It's so much easier," agrees 17-year-old Francisco "Pancho" Peterson. "If you click on the magnifying glass, it shows you the procedure of what you should know, and that helps a lot. It shows you what to do. In a way, it's like a big cheat sheet to figure out what you did."
The Internet-based lessons are part of what's being called the Global Learning Network being pioneered by HCC and applying CISCO Systems Inc. Web-based technology to academic courses.
Eventually the college hopes to see this expanded beyond math, said Dallas Shiroma, coordinator of the program and a dean at HCC who helped develop the course.
Kahuku principal Lisa DeLong is looking at the program in longer terms — and how it will help open new doors for her students. Starting eighth- and ninth-graders in algebra offers them better opportunities to be ready for college.
"We want more students to take algebra by eighth or ninth grade because it's really a gateway subject," DeLong says. "If they don't take it by then, they're missing some opportunities, and it can close some doors for college if they don't get that foundation early in high school.
"We want to do right by our students, so if this is something they feel confident about, it will build their confidence about their math ability, and they'll take more math. That's why I was really enthusiastic."
But DeLong also sees offering this new interactive learning option as a way to stay ahead of the benchmark her school needs to hit each year — a benchmark that her students are hitting now, but one that's constantly rising.
With the innovative computerized lessons, students move at a pace that suits them.
Whizzes like Kahuku's 15-year-old Brendan Melemai can speed ahead or tutor others who may be struggling, while others can let the pieces fall into place more gradually.
"You don't have to carry a textbook all around," enthuses Melemai. "And you find out what you did wrong faster. It's like having (another) teacher. And some of them show a magnifying glass — solutions to how you get the answer."
Last summer HCC trained a dozen teachers in the new technology; this year they've taken it into classrooms serving about 400 to 500 students statewide, including Waipahu and Kahuku High schools and Kaimuki Intermediate on O'ahu, and Honoka'a High and the Hawai'i Academy of Arts and Science Charter school on the Big Island. Kaimuki High and Campbell High on O'ahu will begin next year.
Teacher McDonald has been one of the most enthusiastic. Team-teaching at Kahuku with Ikaika Plunkett, she's found tremendous support from the school, too, in spending $12,000 to buy the necessary computers.
Parents are also liking it, she said, because they can see progress.
"I've had several parents work with me from home," she said.
Plunkett is also enthusiastic, especially about the program's adaptation to the needs of individual students by allowing the fast ones to speed ahead and others move at their pace.
For Daesha Johnson, a ninth-grader, there's no need for an assessment exam to prove anything. Johnson says this new kind of computer learning has finally made math understandable.
"When I first started online, it started to click," she said. "It's self-explanatory."
"This has really brought her back around," said her mother, Brenda Johnson. "I thought I was going to lose her (in math.) When she was younger, there was something she missed. A concept, maybe. So we had to do reverse-rewind. So it's remarkable to see what's happening to her. Now she's hoping to be a teacher some day."
But the new program is offering the Johnsons even more. The senior Johnson is also taking algebra, an online prerequisite before she can study practical nursing.
Now mother and daughter work together in the evening on the same math.
"She's actually tutoring me as we go," said Johnson of her daughter. "We sit down and go through it together. It's a step-by-step process."
Despite the success stories, there have been a few students who aren't making headway, mostly because they're uncomfortable working on a computer. But even that problem can be solved. After all, that's what math books are for.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
