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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - High school students in the Northwest Territories should never again have to sit in math class and wonder, 'when am I ever going to use this stuff?' according to Steven Daniel, co-ordinator of math and sciences with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

The government has begun phasing in a new mathematics curriculum developed by the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol - a collaboration of the four western provinces and all three territories' education ministries - with input from teachers and educators, to multiply the options for students studying the subject.

The new curriculum will see mathematics branch out for high school students and give Grade 11 students the chance to pursue three different mathematics courses: pre-calculus, the foundations of mathematics, and apprenticeship and workplace mathematics.

Grade 10 students will have the option of either the apprenticeship math course or a common course incorporating the pre-calculus and foundations of math options, which will break apart into two separate programs the following year.

Daniel said the shift in curriculum was based on providing more options to students.

"We heard from parents and teachers and students that Grade 10 was too early to make a decision on what they wanted to do for post-secondary," he said.

"All three are distinct courses. There is no overlap in the outcome," said Daniel, adding students will be able to take the courses concurrently if they wish.

"It's opening up far more doors for them," he said.

Daniel said the new options will have direct, real-life applications for students.

The workplace and apprenticeship mathematics course will delve into business math, accounting, taxation and mortgage problems. It will also include algebra, based on real-life contexts found in various trades occupations.

Roman Mahnic, principal of Samuel Hearne Secondary School in Inuvik and a math major, has been a principal for 18 years and said this was the best math program he has seen.

He is impressed with the amount of group work the curriculum sets out.

"Learning a concept in isolation, really it's there one minute, it's gone the next," he said.

Mahnic said the class first begins a concept with a basic discussion on what students know about it, and then works on the concept in groups before beginning the "drill and practice" homework.

"They can't get away with rote memorization any more," he said. "They have to understand it."

He said math is being taught differently than it was just five years ago.

"Students are seeing real world applications," he said, adding they are now wondering how they can use their math when they go home or when they play hockey.

"Once students see a reason for doing a lesson, they are obviously going to be motivated to do it," he said.

Changes will also be made to kindergarten to Grade 9 learning.

"What we were finding was students were not understanding the basic number concepts: what numbers look like and how they can be manipulated," he said.

Daniel said students will spend more time physically manipulating numbers with manipulative objects, to show them what a number looks like.

"It will give students time to sit down and sort of reflect on what they are doing," he said, instead of having them always doing math on a piece of paper.

The curriculum is already underway for Grade 7 students and Mahnic said teachers and students are both saying it's great. He said manipulatives - whether through new smartboards, computer models or old-school elastic geo-boards - will be everywhere in junior high schools.

"We are trying to connect the visuals for students," he said.

Mahnic said not only is the curriculum allowing his students to master concepts - as opposed to merely covering them - but, as a perhaps unintended benefit of all the group work, attendance has improved.

"I don't know if that is a natural thing that happened," he laughed.

Daniel said K-9 resources have already been developed and approved, while the Grade 10 to 12 materials were still under development.

Resources will be available in both French and English.

He said each grade will be given a one-year transition period to absorb the curriculum.

A neat wrinkle in the creation of the curriculum had teachers from the territory involved in developing the textbooks, which means Northern and aboriginal content will be included in the school resources.

"Our students can actually see themselves in these resources when they're looking through them," said Daniel.

He said funding for the new curriculum will be provided by the territorial government and distributed to schools based on their number of full-time equivalent students.

However, for smaller communities with lower enrolment, a baseline funding formula was devised to get the required resources into the schools.

The government hopes to have the curriculum phased into all grades by 2012 with final departmental exams for the new courses written in 2013.