A numeracy project is challenging teachers and students in Border Land School Division to think differently about math.

Now into its third year in BLSD, the division linked with the Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium (mRLC) in 2016 to facilitate the initiative, which aims to improve student achievement and understanding of math.

"When you look at the provincial data...it suggests that our math scores are lagging. Our students aren't doing as well in math as we'd like them to, and so provincially we are being challenged to think about numeracy work differently than we have in the past," said Jonathan Toews, BLSD assistant superintendent.

Through the project, teachers are provided with a pacing and sequencing guide that offers them a process to effectively cover the whole curriculum and make sure students have a full understanding of the content, as opposed to rushing to get through the textbook by the end of the year.

Teachers are also encouraged to select strategies that allow all students to have success, and then assess the results and change tactics if needed.

A big part of the initiative also has teachers pinpointing foundational elements of the curriculum, assessing students' understanding of those concepts, and revisiting them throughout the year if the extra learning is needed.

This reach-back approach is also applied to homework and has changed how assignments are doled out.

"As a student, when I got math homework, I got assigned concepts that I hadn't fully understood and so I went home to struggle some more to understand it," explained Toews. "The way that we think about that now is throughout the course of the school year we're sending math to re-enforce learning that they (students) already feel confident about but may forget and get weaker at if left alone for a period of time."

Toews noted this new approach to teaching math invites veteran teachers to explore new and different methods to their instruction.

"...(They are) saying 'This is a game-changer for me. The way that I teach math now and the success that I feel as a math teacher has changed and I'm not going to go back and teach the way I did before. This has given me new energy.'."

As for the students, Toews said not only are math scores improving in the division, but students are developing a positive mindset about numeracy and becoming confident in their ability to do the math.

This change in thinking falls in-line with a numeracy plan that BLSD has developed to run in tandem with the overall project.

As BLSD Numeracy Coach, Nicole Vinet explained, the first goal is to develop a positive mindset and positive norms in every BLSD school.

The second goal aims to build procedural fluency (the ability to do the math) from conceptual understanding (the understanding of why we do the math in this way(s) ).

Math teachers Jason Driedger, Curt Friesen and Kayla Pott are part of the numeracy team at Ecole West Park School in Altona and participated in the initial pilot project when it was introduced in 2016.

Pott admits initially the pace of the teaching was slightly overwhelming but says now that she's gone through the pacing guide a couple of times she is confident that all of the outcomes are being thoroughly taught rather than rushed through at the end of the year.

For Friesen, he's noticed students become more confident in their work thanks to the reach-back homework.

"For me, homework used to be whatever you didn't finish in the classroom...and often the frustration there was that students who didn't get it in a class were still having trouble at home and they're making mistakes. When you start to work on problems and you do them wrong over and over again, that's not helpful, so we're very intentional with making our homework material something that they have covered before...so that it is work they should be able to do independently."

Pott added she's had a lot of positive feedback from parents on this new strategy as well.

As for Driedger, he's implemented a unique method to determine students' outlook on math as the year progresses.

Michael Luptak is a high school math teacher at W.C. Miller Collegiate in Altona. He has also been participating in the numeracy project since its inception in BLSD.

"A good teacher has to be flexible in the way they think and constantly hold their own ideas up against whatever new ideas come to them, especially when those new ideas are put forward by people...who have insights to some of the things that you tackle on a daily basis and this program offered that opportunity," he said.

Based on his own formative work, Luptak says his math students are registering a 10 percent increase in scores from one attempt at a foundational outcome to the next.

"These outcomes are tested a month apart so you know that they're not just simply remembering what the question is, but also they're testing a nuance or a challenging part of that question that's been sort of changed whereas the main theme stays the same."

"It's just really neat to see that first of all, we have a measuring stick to measure this with and second, that students are progressing the way that we hoped they would," he added.