Education  June 6, 2008

Class brings math into real world

LOVELAND – What high school math teacher hasn’t heard this complaint: “Why do I have to learn this stuff? I’ll never use it.”

Loveland High School math teacher Tom Moore and career and technology education teacher Scott Burke have teamed up to provide the perfect answer: the Geometry in Construction class.

Not only does the course reinforce classroom geometry lessons in a way that is relevant and interesting to 21st-century high school students, it includes actual building construction.

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“A lot of students learn better by doing,” Burke said. “We’re changing (the typical school classroom experience) for the better for all types of students. The students are ready and the teachers are ready.”

Another force behind the marriage of two great ideas, according to Burke, was funding.

While there is usually enough money for college-prep coursework for the best students, and vocational training for underachievers, Burke estimates that leaves “only trickle-down money” for 60 percent to 80 percent of the student body.

By bringing the tech-ed aspect into the mathematics classroom, Geometry in Construction has attracted those “average” students as well as traditional vocational and college-bound students. The result? Mathematics test scores that exceed school district requirements. Another plus for the Thompson School District, which was cutting vocation education funding two years ago: For both years the two-semester course has been offered, it has been a self-funded entity.

For the first class offered during the 2006-07 academic year, 65 to 70 students participated in the course. Moore estimates that 120 were involved during the just completed school year, and he expects 200 to sign on for 2008-09.

So far, most of the students have been freshmen and sophomores, so Moore feels another two years of the program will be needed to determine whether many of the participants continue in the construction field after high school.

“We’ll help funnel them (into construction management studies at the two-year or four-year college level) if they are interested,” he said.

How it works

Part of the popularity of Geometry in Construction is that it takes students out of the classroom. Over the course of the school year they build an actual modular house that is then sold to Interfaith Hospitality Network, which donates it to a homeless family.

When the 2007-08 house was completed on school grounds during the last week of May, it was set to be moved to its permanent site in Loveland’s Raven Place neighborhood over the summer. The knowledge that someone will live in the completed project pushes the students to give their best, Burke said.

Unlike in other classes, “here 70 percent isn’t good enough,” he said. “The house has to be 100 percent ready.”

The course is made possible through a variety of sponsors, who donate or provide a deep discount on materials. These companies don’t advise on curriculum, but they do provide hands-on assistance in teaching wiring and similar technical skills. Burke singled out Genesis Homes as being especially generous in providing blueprint plans to the class, and for hiring several of his best motivated students as summer interns.

Moore and Burke meet twice a year with an advisory board that includes representatives of local construction companies. The board is a resource for ideas on what topics to highlight during the construction phase of the class, and for keeping current regarding technological developments. The meetings are two-way exchanges, since the board members take the opportunity to explain what they see as lacking in most of their recent hires.

“The advisers suggest that it is hard to find employees with ‘soft skills’ such as communication and teamwork,” Burke said. “All of these soft skills are embedded (in the course): team working, problem solving, how you can find an answer to a situation. We take kids at a young age, and give them exposure to all areas of construction management, not just one narrow aspect.”

“We want to get kids hired and out there,” Moore added. “This gives direction to students who need it.”

So far, Geometry in Construction has only been taught at Loveland High School. The 2008-09 course includes training two teachers from Loveland’s Mountain View High School, who will then begin teaching a version of the program at their school for 2009-10.

In addition, Moore and Burke will travel to Texas this summer to train several teachers, and there has been interest shown in receiving training from Greeley’s school district.

That’s the limit for the present, since as Moore explained, “We haven’t done a lot of promotion around the state.”

Burke is quick to add, however, that “there is a lot of Front Range interest.”

LOVELAND – What high school math teacher hasn’t heard this complaint: “Why do I have to learn this stuff? I’ll never use it.”

Loveland High School math teacher Tom Moore and career and technology education teacher Scott Burke have teamed up to provide the perfect answer: the Geometry in Construction class.

Not only does the course reinforce classroom geometry lessons in a way that is relevant and interesting to 21st-century high school students, it includes actual building construction.

“A lot of students learn better by doing,” Burke said. “We’re changing (the typical school classroom experience) for the better for all types of students.…

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