Shaping the Culture of Algebra Classrooms

The Academic Youth Development Initiative is a project of the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin in partnership with Agile Mind, Inc.

The goal of the Academic Youth Development initiative is to support the successful transition of students into Algebra I, especially for those students also moving from middle school to high school mathematics. AYD melds best practices in supporting algebra readiness skills with recent advances in developmental and social psychology concerning the factors that shape students’ engagement and commitment to success in rigorous academic programs.

A central feature of AYD is the construction of a cohort of students who can create a positive learning environment for all students in their algebra class. A summer school intervention shapes the way students think about themselves as learners, develops their commitment to high achievement, and creates a set of social supports that sustain responsible and productive engagement in challenging courses.

Research demonstrates that relatively modest interventions aimed at shaping the culture of algebra classes can have powerful effects on student success. Key to the AYD initiative is helping students understand that intelligence is malleable, not fixed. AYD incorporates ideas from social psychology regarding effective effort, attribution of effort, and the significance of interpersonal skills, sense of belonging, and motivation in learning mathematics. The initiative provides students and teachers with an explicit set of tools and strategies for applying these ideas in the Algebra I classroom and in daily learning. It also provides mathematics content that focuses on problem solving that connects prior learning to what the summer program students will experience in their first year of algebra.

AYD uses online curriculum resources to develop and support both a cohort of student allies and their algebra teachers. Participating students and teachers work together in a summer bridge experience, which is followed by a series of experiences in the academic year. The online curriculum resources include:

  • Flexible instructional support resources and tools for helping students learn difficult content
  • Interactive animations, simulations, and visualizations that deepen students’ understanding of key concepts
  • Explorations and investigations that challenge students and show them the power of the mathematics they are learning
  • Embedded formative assessments that help teachers manage instructional improvement

Summer Bridge Experience

Participation in AYD begins with a 14-day summer bridge experience in which students use the online curriculum resources to build academic confidence and mathematical problem-solving skills. During the summer bridge, students

  • Build relationships with other students and with their future Algebra I teacher
  • Learn and apply strategies for effective effort
  • Learn about and apply theories of malleable intelligence
  • Develop effective two-way communication strategies
  • Use tools to develop and refine mathematics problem-solving skills
  • Gain expertise in key problem-solving strategies they will need during Algebra I

Academic Year Experiences

AYD’s academic year experiences are designed to support teachers and students in activating and reflecting upon what they learned in the summer bridge experience, nurture critical relationships between the students and their teachers, administrators, and counselors, and, most important, support students’ aspirations for high achievement.

Preparing for AYD Implementation in Your School

Successful implementation and integration of the AYD initiative requires the following activities:

  • Recruiting students and teachers for the summer bridge experience (November through March)
  • Training teachers to use AYD strategies (Spring)
  • Implementing the summer bridge experience (June through August)
  • Planning and implementing academic year activities (August through May)

Preliminary Findings from Summer 2008

Surveys of students after they completed the AYD summer 2008 component indicated the following:

  • Students feel better supported by their peers in learning mathematics.
  • Students have become more persistent in completing their work, even if the homework is boring or the math problem is frustrating. Furthermore, when the mathematics is difficult, students are more likely to study everything, not just the easy parts.
  • When problem solving, students are more purposeful in their strategies—such as asking for important information and eliminating unnecessary information.

One-on-one interviews with students indicated the following:

  • The AYD course would be good for all students.
  • The AYD course is not all about math; it helps students to understand how to learn in new ways.
  • The AYD course is a good way to meet new friends and get to know their Algebra 1 teacher.
  • The AYD course is fun because it has numerous hands-on activities.

Acknowledgments

The Dana Center's work in Academic Youth Development (AYD) is the creative product of many peoples' hard work and commitment to bettering the lives of children. The program strategy is a natural evolution of Uri Treisman's work on nurturing high achievement of African American and Latino college math students. It builds as well on the Chicago Public Schools' Step Up to High School program. The current version of AYD is the product of a powerful collaboration of teachers and administrators in Evanston Township High School, the creative team of Agile Mind (our commercial collaborator), and many Dana Center staff members and critical friends. We thank them all and honor their contributions. We gratefully and respectfully acknowledge the work of social psychologists, Dr. Stacey Rosenkrantz Aronson and Professor Catherine Good, whose research knowledge and creative ideas have been invaluable to our AYD work at many levels, and Professor Joshua Aronson, whose research findings and creative suggestions have found a happy home in the initiative.

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