Colleges aid schools with math via RAMP-UP

Two days a week, Clyde Gholston stands in front of a group of third- and fourth-graders at Washington Elementary School and teaches all things math, trying to keep the students engaged, trying to think of innovative ways to teach multiplication.

At Southeast Raleigh High School, Denice Young meets with students at 7 a.m., showing them how math can be applied to everyday situations.

Gholston, a Shaw University junior, and Young, an N.C. State University graduate student, are part of a program that is intended to reach out to students traditionally under-represented in math and turn them into sound adders, multipliers and square-rooters.

Through $2.5 million in grants from the National Science Foundation and The General Electric Foundation, NCSU's engineering and education schools have teamed with Shaw and Wake County public schools in an effort to boost the number of minorities who take Algebra I by the eighth grade and calculus by their senior years. Thirty-five NCSU and Shaw students are working with the program.

Dubbed RAMP-UP (for Recognizing Accelerated Math Potential in Under-represented People), the program is in its second year. The college students may work with small groups, help create lessons and, on the high school level, teach engineering concepts.

RAMP-UP is under a five-year grant, and the student teachers are paid.

"The numbers of kids from under- represented groups that take advanced math are low, and that's not just in Wake County," said Liz Parry of NCSU's College of Engineering and RAMP-UP's director.

"If you look at the data on identification of academically gifted students in AP [advanced placement], Wake County is like most: It's largely Caucasian. We are looking to add to it by putting students [from] college in third grade and go all the way up to 12th.

"Your success in math in high school is a strong predictor of how well you do in math in college."

According to the state Department of Public Instruction, 88.3 percent of white students were passing or at grade level in Algebra I at the end of the 2004-05 school year, compared with 65.3 percent of blacks and 72.4 percent of Hispanics.

In Wake County, 94.9 of white students were at grade level or passing, compared with 76.3 percent of blacks and 80.9 percent of Hispanics.

"We see that students are capable of doing the work, said Young, 23, the NCSU student who is working on a master's degree in material science and engineering. "But sometimes it's those fundamental skills they don't have or remember -- for example, with multiplication, knowing your multiplication tables and being able to do that in your head not having to rely on a calculator.

"What a lot of students don't realize is that you don't have to be a genius to do engineering," she said. "You just have to know how to apply the concepts."

Last semester, RAMP-UP student teachers spent about 6,000 hours in Wake County schools -- Bugg, Combs, Dillard, Fuller and Washington elementary, Centennial and Carnage middle and Southeast Raleigh High. Each student teacher puts in 15 to 20 hours a week.

Sold on the program

Jan Kidwell, Washington Elementary's instructional resource teacher and the RAMP-UP coordinator, said the program is working.

"It's a great program because it allows a sharing between teachers, N.C. State students and Shaw," Kidwell said. "They bring their math background to our program, which as educators, we are always lifelong learners learning new techniques in math; yet, we are able to help the [college] students to share with the youth of today. It's like all parties benefit."

Laura Bottomley, the director of K-12 outreach for NCSU's College of Engineering and the principal investigator for RAMP-UP, said the partnership has increased communication among Shaw, NCSU and the public schools.

Bottomley said NCSU's engineering school is also getting a better idea of what to expect from Algebra II students out of high school.

"We expect them to know certain things, but they don't know them," Bottomley said. "But they know certain things that we didn't expect them to know. So we are learning as well."

For Gholston, 20, the Shaw math major, being able to stand before a class of students has been a learning experience beyond any other. In addition to working in the schools, he tutors math at a Boys and Girls Club.

"Beforehand, I would have never thought I would be able to create a lesson that I could stick to for an hour," Gholston said. "It brings out the creative side of me. I can come up with a good lesson plan and teach it, and the kids will give me good feedback based on how quick they grasp the concepts I'm trying to convey."

To James Nelson of Shaw's math and education department, RAMP-UP has other benefits.

"When public school students see someone a little older succeeding and doing well in the subject," he said, "we hope that will inspire them to keep working harder and proceed in science and math."