Easy Math/ Distributed Practice Anecdotals
- Ray Brown, teaching at Lincoln High School in McClellanville, S. C. used EASY MATH DP to take the remedial 9 grade students from being the slowest students in their class to being the highest (by 14 percentage points) on the Charleston CSD Area Exam in math. In the other year teaching at Lincoln, Mr. Brown taught the students having difficulty passing the High School Exit Exam in math. All of those students passed the math portion of the Exit Exam.
- While teaching remedial math at Burke High School, Ray Brown’s full—size remedial 9th—grade classes scored a 15.1 NCE gain on standardized testing. These students also took a regular math class, so it is estimated that the remedial class using Easy Math was responsible for about 11 to 11.5 NCE units gained.
- Ray Brown’s 7th—grade Chapter 1 students showed a 14.7 NCE gain on CUBS after using Easy Math, exclusive of computer—assisted instruction. This was approximately a 24 month gain in a 6÷ month period of time for students that would normally show about a 4 month gain. One other teacher at the school used Easy Math also. 70% of the students scored above the national average with a mean score above the 6oth percentile. This was at Schroeder Middle School, a 98% black school with about 90% on free or reduced lunch. Only 5% of the students were left in the bottom quartile. One LD student was placed in his class that year. This young man went up approximately 300 points from BSAP in the 6th grade to CUBS in the 7th.
- Berkeley Middle School won a $38,000 EIA incentive grant because 6 math teachers used Easy Math to raise the school percentiles from around the 25th to the 78th, even though the results only doubled student learning and retention. Only two of these teachers had been in-serviced in the use of Easy Math. Mrs. Allison, one of those in-serviced, and in her first full year of teaching, had students that tripled their learning. This was not nearly as good as some teachers’ students in CCSD had performed.
- Kathy Bowers, math
coordinator for Dorchester District II, told me of slow students in
- Charles Gale, current Superintendent of the Colletin County SD, volunteered to teach a math class in one of the Middle Schools. The teachers had said they had a group of students that they could not get to pass math. A former math teacher that had used DP, Mr. Gale took the class and had great success with that group of students. At the time, he was serving in the capacity as an assistant superintendent.
- Mr. Simpson, a math teacher at Stratford High in the BCSD, has for many years used a Distributed testing procedure that has been shown to be very effective in improving student learning and retention. In a study that I looked at out of a Wisconsin high school, the Algebra students scored more than 60% higher on their final exams after this testing procedure was implemented. They went from an average of 49% to 80% after using this procedure.
- Ernestine Murray, a science teacher at Schroeder Middle School in the CCSD, taught one math class using EASY MATH DP. In 5 months time, her class of minority students showed a 14.1 NCE gain, going from the 58thpercentile to the 8l percentile.
- Bernie Cole, the French teacher at Schroeder Middle School, used DP for just 9 weeks with her 7th grade class of minority students. These students scored 3rd place in the CCSD area exam in French with a class average of 88.8. The previous year, a similar group of French students taught by Mrs. Cole scored in last place in the district on that French area exam with a 76 average.
- Katie Tolley, a teacher at Drayton Hall Middle School in the CCSD, had a class of remedial students that scored more than a 20 NCE gain, multiplying their historical learning and retention by about 900%.
- Trisha Britt, a teacher at Drayton Hall Middle School, used Easy Math DP (a basic skills program) for 2.5 months with her 8th grade Algebra Class to help prepare them for BSAP. These brighter students showed what we estimated to be a gain 23 NCE units higher, with 9 of the students getting perfect scores on BSAP. The previous year only one or two students got perfect scores.
- Nancy Parson and Pam Roitsch, Earth Science teachers at Laing Middle School in Mt. Pleasant, used Earth Science DP vocabulary materials written by Ray Brown. Each of them endorsed the DP materials with Ms. Roitsch saying that “the science vocabulary words have become like another language to the students.” Ms. Parson was a South Carolina Science Teacher of the Year. Ms. Roitsch was a Laing Middle School Teacher of the Year.
- Shirley Smith, a math teacher at Brentwood Middle School in the CCSD, used her own DP program that she had developed over the years. According to her principal Annette Goodwin, not a single one of Ms. Smith’s students scored below the state standard on standardized testing (in the year of which we were speaking).
- Of the 9 schools with 16 different examples using John Saxon math programs (based on DP), the average estimated achievement gain was 477%. These examples and school were chosen because they all reported using national percentile scores. For the purposes of computing, a percentile gain of 6 points was considered to be a doubling of the normal amount of learning. This amount may be higher or lower than the actual correct estimate; therefore, the average gain could be more or less than the 477%. With the Saxon Phonics programs, the 4 schools with 6 separate examples showed an average achievement gain of 330%. It is worth noting that Mr. Saxon’s math books were recognized for accelerating student learning back in the 1980’s by President Reagan.
- Mrs. Nancy Germaine, used Easy Math with a class of 16 remedial students at Laing Middle School, Mt. Pleasant, and S. C. Fourteen of the 16 students met the State Standard, which was much, much better than the year before. The two students not meeting the standard had missed school more than 30 days during the year. Of this group of students, more than half scored above the 50th percentile.
- Lisa Allison, in her first full year of teaching, used Easy Math at Berkeley Middle School, Moncks Corner, and S. C. Her average and below average students showed a 9 NCE unit gain, which was 3+ times their normal achievement.
- Ms. Smith, a math teacher at Brentwood Middle School, did not use Easy Math, but used a very similar program she developed herself over many years of teaching. Her principal, Ms. Goodwin, stated to Ray Brown that not a single student in Ms. Smith’s math classes had scored below the standard. These were mixed ability classes and Brentwood is a tough school from a discipline standpoint.
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- Dr. Michael Seaman, Director of Research at the University of South Carolina, reviewed the Easy Math materials and stated that he would expect greater learning and retention using these materials, and because they are so similar to computer— assisted instruction, no school district using CAI should be able to refute the use of Easy Math.
- The Charleston County School District nominated Easy Math for a national award—— entrance into the Learning Bank—— and promoted the seeking of a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and other grantors for the purpose of having Ray Brown write other distributed practice math programs at other levels.
- Distributed practice is a principle of learning that works across the curriculum in a wide range of subjects. Because of its increased efficiency in learning and teaching, its effect is like adding many more minutes to a classroom while at the same time diminishing much of the boredom that may exist. Students will be more involved in the learning. For example, Ray Brown wrote an Earth Science vocabulary program based on distributed practice. He received endorsements on that program from the two teachers that used it. Both taught at Laing Middle School (CCSD). The first, Nancy Parson, was the S. C. Science teacher of the year. The other, Pam Roitsch, was a teacher of the year at Laing. Mrs. Roitsch described the vocabulary words, as having become a new language to the students with them frequently competing against each other to see who knew the words best.
- Easy Math supports the NTCM STANDARDS and higher order thinking skills.
- Other examples of Easy Math’s effectiveness may be seen on the Easy Math brochure.
