Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Need Math Club Help at Middle School

Hi everyone, I am looking for suggestions in regards to a Middle School Math Club I run. Some quick background, I am not a teacher (I am a realtor) and I was a C average math student in HS, with no college background. I have no problem doing trainings, I tend to pick up things quickly, and have some public speaking experience. I started the Math Club in my sons ES because our school district has no math accommodations beyond the basic curriculum. For the past 3 years I ran a club at the ES, and since last year I have moved over and I run one at the MS. My goal was to provide my son an opportunity to participate in Math Contests like the AMC-8 and Math Counts, and challenge him, while keeping math fun. I am in the Los Angeles area, and our school district has about 22k students and the MS has about 1300 students. The problem I am having is that most (All but 2) students score below average on the AMC-8 and Math Counts programs. This year on the School Level Math counts our club 20-25 students averaged a 5 on the 30 question sprint test. (Note this was with tossing out my sons score) Note: I have a lot of 6th graders. The problem seems to be that I can’t seem to motivate them to do better. I am not sure if this is because I am not a motivational teacher, or because the Math is just too difficult for them. There is a huge difference between what they learn in school and what is needed to score above a 15 on the contest. I also believe that maybe demographics matter, but only in the area of family support. Most (Ok maybe all) parents involved do not have the math skills to help their children at home. I personally believe the students have the ability, just not the support of motivation. I am looking for ways to help them improve in the contests. At the middle school level I have not involved the parents in any meaningful way, believing that the motivation should be more intrinsic at this age, perhaps I am wrong. I also have a 7th grade pre-algebra teacher helping me with the club. He tends to believe that the AMC-8 and the Math Counts programs are just too difficult for the overall student population. We meet once a week after school for about 1 hour. Any suggestions, questions, or comments are welcome.

Edwin,

Kudo to your volunteering efforts.

Some parents and students misunderstand that Math Club is for competition and not tutoring for slow learners. My DD's old school's Math club had more below average kids than Mathy kids. The teacher said they were not really interested in doing Math. the parents signed them up as after schoool activtity so that the kids can be picked up after work.

I would divide into two groups after giving one sample test (AMC-8 or Math Counts) and who score above the benchmark will be in a select group who will be prepped for competition. The other group will get fun but not so challenging Math activities. There are online Math lessons like Khan's academy (free). The study island is fun (the kids can play games after the correct answer) but there's a fee.

Discrimination is wrong but differentiation is not. When the majority of the kids in Math club is underperforming, other Mathy kids will not join in.

Good Luck!

Master of none, almost wrote fun. Thank you I like the idea of freindly game competition with benchmark awards. This will be helpful so that they feel like they are moving forward. Next week we start 24, a gmae they all seem to like.

Peter, I agree about the parent part, I had that issue at the ES. We tried this year to avoid it by having the studentss voluteer to be in the club, and not having a notification go out to the parents. This seemed to backfire a little because the follow through from the student side has been less. I will also look at dividing them. The issiue we have is there are 2 students who score in the 20s on the Math Count Sprint, 5 of them score 10ish and the rest are below that. Its almost like having three different clubs.

Some brainstorming....
Each kid maintain a self-rated chart on skills and set their goals for skill improvement. Match resources to skill areas. Get some online resources for them. Have you used AMC's math club site for ideas?

Since you seem to have three different groups, define an entry scoring level to each group. Basically create a progression of attainable aspirations. Have mentoring between groups. Sometimes explaining a method will help the more advanced person formalize their own thinking and processes.

Other than whatever AMC they had in the late 70s, I lobbied (unsuccessfully) for 4 or 5 years to get a math club when I was kid. Definitely, kudos for making it happen.