Episode 79 | Karen Wootton and What Could a Math Intervention Course Look Like?

Chris is joined via Google Hangout by Karen Wootton an author and director for CPM Education (formerly College Preparatory Mathematics). They discuss a project CPM has in the design phase right now. Students who have struggled with Algebra 1 or some of its precursor courses are often directed into a second course in mathematics typically called “Math Intervention.” Typically the structure of Intervention courses is that of a deficit model of student. “These students do not have enough mathematics, therefore we need to give them more of the same mathematics in the same way to support the ‘Real’ math they do in their core course.” What Karen, and the team at CPM are doing is turn this idea aside, based on the idea that mathematics is a human attribute and all the students they teach are human, mathematics is a part of who these students are. The trouble, as they see it, is the mathematics that the students are given to study  does not connect to them at all. Therefore the content of the CPM Intervention course is intended to be more fluid, flexible and open to adaptation.