Chris Puglia
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 13/02) - Math has been identified by Yellowknife Education District No. 1 as a priority.

Two years ago the school division began participating in Alberta achievement testing and they wanted to find ways to improve jurisdiction scores on those tests.

Karen Stride-Goudie is the new Math coordinator for the YK1 school division. The position is new this year. - Chris Puglia/NNSL photo

Offered in Grades 3, 6 and 9 Alberta Achievement tests evaluate students skills across the curriculum.

This year along with a literacy pilot project the board has initiated a mathematics and numeracy pilot project to boost students mathematics scores.

Part of that initiative was the hiring of Karen Stride-Goudie the division's new math coordinator.

"The position was created to improve the math scores so we are at the acceptable level and level of excellence for achievement," said Stride-Goudie.

Grade 9 students in YK1 only scored 59 per cent at the acceptable level of achievement after the first round of achievement testing, the target is 85 per cent.

The report for last year's achievement test scores will be made available to the board in October and those results will help Stride-Goudie develop a strategy to improve division math scores.

"Part of my role will be to sit down with our math teachers to analyze those results and plan from those results," said Stride-Goudie.

One of the barriers to learning mathematics that is being addressed in the pilot project is literacy.

Ensuring students understand the math vocabulary is essential and Stride-Goudie is advocating a multi-faceted approach to learning bridging literacy and mathematics.

"All teachers are language teachers regardless of the subject they teach it's not just skill based it's literacy based.

Work to develop teaching resources and curriculum will be extended to the Grade 4 and 5 levels in order to see results in the Grade 6 achievement tests in the future.

"If we are really going to achieve at Grade 6 we are going to have to go back further than that," said Stride-Goudie.

The new position was a directive set forward by the board of trustees and Stride-Goudie is excited to have the opportunity to work with the middle school math program.

"I'm pumped," she said.

"For me a s a teacher I love to work with adolescents and I love teaching math so it was a really neat fit for me. Anytime you're involved with a brand new position it's exciting."