Algebra 1 Growth in Geometry and Algebra II, Spring 2013

This is part of an ongoing series on my Algebra II and Geometry classes. By definition, students in these classes should have some level of competence in Algebra I. I’ve been tracking their progress on an algebra I pre-assessment test. The test assesses student ability to evaluate and substitute, use PEMDAS, solve simple equations, operate with negative integers, combine like terms. It tiptoes into first semester algebra—linear equations, simple systems, basic quadratic factoring—but the bulk of the 50 questions involve pre-algebra. While I used the test at my last school, I only thought of tracking student progress this year. My school is on a full-block schedule, which means we teach a year’s content in a semester, then repeat the whole cycle with another group of students. A usual teacher schedule is three daily 90-minute classes, with a fourth period prep. I taught one algebra II and one geometry class first semester (the third class prepared low ability students for a math graduation test), their results are here.

So in round two, I taught two Algebra 2 courses and one Geometry 10-12 (as well as a precalc class not part of this analysis). My first geometry class was freshmen only. In my last school, only freshmen who scored advanced or proficient on their 8th grade algebra test were put into geometry, while the rest take another year of algebra. In this school, all a kid has to do is pass algebra to be put into geometry, but we offer both honors and regular geometry. So my first semester class, Geometry 9, was filled with well-behaved kids with extremely poor algebra skills, as well as a quarter or so kids who had stronger skills but weren’t interested in taking honors.

I was originally expecting my Geometry 10-12 class to be extremely low ability and so wasn’t surprised to see they had a lower average incoming score. However, the class contained 6 kids who had taken Honors Geometry as freshmen—and failed. Why? They didn’t do their homework. “Plus, proofs. Hated proofs. Boring,” said one. These kids knew the entire geometry fact base, whether or not they grokked proofs, which they will never use again. I can’t figure out how to look up their state test scores yet, but I’m betting they got basic or higher in geometry last year. But because they were put into Honors, they have to take geometry twice. Couldn’t they have been given a C in regular geometry and moved on?

But I digress. Remember that I focus on number wrong, not number right, so a decrease is good.

Again, I offer up as evidence that my students may or may not have learned geometry and second year algebra, but they know a whole lot more basic algebra than they did when they entered my class. Fortunately, my test scores weren’t obliterated this semester, so I have individual student progress to offer.

I wasn’t sure the best way to do this, so I did a scatter plot with data labels to easily show student before/after scores. The data labels aren’t reliably above or below the point, but you shouldn’t have to guess which label belongs to which point.

So in case you’re like me and have a horrible time reading these graphs, scores far over to the right on the x-axis are those who did poorly the first time. Scores low on the y-axis are those who did well the second time. So high right corner are the weak students at both beginning and end. The low left corner are the strong students who did well on both.

Geometry first. Thirty one students took both tests.

Four students saw no improvement, another four actually got more wrong, although just 1 or 2 more. Another 3 students saw just one point improvement. But notice that through the middle range, almost all the students saw enormous improvement: twelve students, over a third, got from five to sixteen more correct answers, that is, improved from 10% to over 30%.

Now Algebra 2. Forty eight students took both tests; I had more testers at the end than the beginning; about ten students started a few days late.

Seven got exactly the same score both times, but only three declined (one of them a surprising 5 points—she was a good student. Must not have been feeling well). Eighteen (also a third) saw improvements of 5 to 16 points.

The average improvement was larger for the Algebra 2 classes than the Geometry classes, but not by much. Odd, considering that I’m actually teaching algebra, directly covering some of the topics in the test. In another sense, not so surprising, given that I am actually tasked to teach an entirely different topic in both cases. I ain’t teaching to this test. Still, I am puzzled that my algebra II students consistently show similar progress to my geometry students, even though they are soaked in the subject and my geometry students aren’t (although they are taught far more algebra than is usual for a geometry class).

I have two possible answers. Algebra 2 is insanely complex compared to geometry, particularly given I teach a very slimmed-down version of geometry. The kids have more to keep track of. This may lead to greater confusion and difficulty retaining what they’ve learned.

The other possibility is one I am reminded of by a beer-drinking buddy, a serious mathematician who is also teaches math: namely, that I’m a kickass geometry teacher. He bases this assertion on a few short observations of my classes and extensive discussions, fueled by many tankards of ale, of my methods and conceptual approaches (eg: Real-life coordinate Geometry, Geometry: Starting Off, Teaching Geometry,Teaching Congruence or Are You Happy, Professor Wu?, Kicking Off Triangles, Teaching Trig).

This possibility is a tad painful to contemplate. Fully half the classes I’ve taught in my four years of teaching—twelve out of twenty four—have been some form of Algebra, either actual Algebra I or Algebra I pretending to be Algebra II. I spend hours thinking about teaching algebra, about making it more understandable, and I believe I’ve had some success (see my various posts on modeling).

Six of those 24 classes have been geometry. Now, I spend time thinking about geometry, too, but not nearly as much, and here’s the terrible truth: when I come up with a new method to teach geometry, whether it be an explanation or a model, it works for a whole lot longer than my methods in algebra.

For example, I have used all the old standbys for identifying slope direction, as well as devising a few of my own, and the kids are STILL doing the mental equivalent of tossing a coin to determine if it’s positive or negative. But when I teach my kids how to find the opposite and adjacent legs of an angle (see “teaching Trig” above), the kids are still remembering it months later.

It is to weep.

I comfort myself with a few thoughts. First, it’s kind of cool being a kickass geometry teacher, if that is my fate. It’s a fun class that I can sculpt to my own design, unlike algebra, which has a billion moving parts everyone needs again.

Second, my algebra II kids say without exception that they understand more algebra than they ever did in the past, that they are willing to try when before they just gave up. Even the top kids who should be in a different class tell me they’ve learned more concepts than before, when they tended to just plug and play. My algebra 2 kids are often taking math placement tests as they go off to college, and I track their results. Few of them are ending up in more than one class out of the hunt, which would be my goal for them, and the best are placing out of remediation altogether. So I am doing something right.

And suddenly, I am reminded of my year teaching all algebra, all the time, and the results. My results look mediocre, yet the school has a stunningly successful year based on algebra growth in Hispanic and ELL students—and I taught the most algebra students and the most of those particular categories.

Maybe what I get is what growth looks like for the bottom 75% of the ability/incentive curve.

Eh. I’ll keep mulling that one. And, as always, spend countless hours trying to think up conceptual and procedural explanations that sticks.

I almost titled this post “Why Merit Pay and Value Added Assessment Won’t Work, Part IA” because if you are paying attention, that conclusion is obvious. But after starting a rant, I decided to leave it for another post.

Also glaringly on display to anyone not ignorant, willfully obtuse, or deliberately lying: Common Core standards are irrelevant. I’d be cynically neutral on them because hell, I’m not going to change what I do, except the tests will cost a fortune, so go forth ye Tea Partiers, ye anti-test progressives, and kill them standards daid.

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