in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, Ju ly 16 ,2 02 0 | 10 oakville.ca Public notice of pesticide use Commencing on June 1, 2020 weather permitting, and ending October 30, 2020, the Town of Oakville intends to control weeds in medians and shrub beds along the following roadsides and parks: Lakeshore Road, Church Street, Robinson Street, Dunn Street, Reynolds Street, Navy Street, Thomas Street, Allan Street, Trafalgar Road, Randall Street, Kerr Street, Bronte Road, East Street, Nelson Street, Jones Street, Marine Drive, Upper Middle Road, Third Line, Dorval Drive, Neyagawa Boulevard, Cornwall Road, Dundas Street, Bridge Road, Rebecca Street, within the Town of Oakville, using the pesticide Finalsan Pro Commercial Concentrate containing active ingredient Soap (ammonium salt of fatty acids) Registration No. 30012 under the Pest Control Products Act (Canada). For further information contact ServiceOakville at 905-845-6601 (TTY 905-338-4200). Collect calls will be accepted from individuals calling long distance. As it turns out, math is a very political subject. The Ontario govern- ment announced the over- haul of the province's mathematics curriculum on June 23, and even spent a significant amount of en- ergy discussing the subject as part of the 2018 election campaign. With such a fo- cus on math at the govern- ment level, there's been a lot of pressure for boards to improve student results, and the Halton Catholic District School Board is no exception. As part of its Math Ac- tion Plan, the board has launched multiple initia- tives and projects in ele- mentary schools that in- cludes both professional development for staff and teachers and providing classroom resources. They also engaged in a monitoring project at five schools, where they tested students with a variety of math problems to deter- mine their understanding of foundational facts. The results were mixed. They found that 10 of 36 Grade 1 students could not subitize beyond four. That means that they were un- able to quickly identify the number of things in a set without counting them one by one. In Grade 2, 17 out of 39 students had trouble coun- ting forwards starting from a number other than one. At the Grade 3 level, 30 out of 39 students were still counting on their fingers to answer questions like "nine plus six." At the junior level, 90 students were interviewed. They were asked a variety of math questions, and one that stood out was the re- sults to the question "400 minus 198." They were asked to answer it using mental math. Of the 90 students, 79 got it incorrect. Most students provided answers like 398 or 302. After these results, the program engaged in coach- ing sessions with teachers to determine the best strat- egies to help students. The results, after six to eight weeks of teaching math strategies involving mod- els, were dramatic. Students went from struggling to making use of a variety of modelling strategies to solve the prob- lems. Jacqueline Mickle, a math consultant with the board, said some were sur- prised with the early re- sponse from students, but were very happy with the improvements over the coaching sessions. She said one particular Grade 2 teacher at Holy Rosary was amazed by the improve- ment. "She was completely gobsmacked by this, and I was too. And I think it's a testament to the work our coaches and teachers are doing together and a testa- ment to the work teachers are engaging in through the monitoring project," said Mickle. There's a heavy empha- sis on the use of models in the teaching. The belief is that children need to be able to visualize numbers to really understand them. According to standard- ized testing, the province's math scores have been sag- ging over the years. Some blamed that fact on a lack of appropriate teacher edu- cation. Others blamed it on the math curriculum in use for the last few years that focuses on experimenta- tion and problem-solving over memorization. Patrick Murphy, Milton trustee at the Halton Cath- olic Board, said he under- stands some parents' frus- tration with the way it's changed, but feels it is for the best. "My child in Grade 1 comes to me with a math problem and I have to start Googling terms and the new methods, which I think is fantastic because it's developing their cogni- tive skills in a different way. We learned math based on memory and re- peating a certain pattern; they're doing it by develop- ing their cognitive skills, and I think it's fantastic," said Murphy. Schools have been closed throughout Ontario as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Anna Prkacin, superin- tendent of education, said this could be an opportuni- ty to work on online mod- ules to help both students and parents with math. "Now, since all of our parents have been brought into our virtual learning environments through dis- tance learning, it's all the more opportunity for us to get together and make sure our parents are on board for the learning. It is some- thing we are definitely looking forward to, and something we were going to do prior to the school clo- sure," said Prkacin. STORY BEHIND THE STORY: As more parents engage in their children's schooling at home, it's important for them to understand the specific areas where students may need more assistance. NEWS CATHOLIC BOARD ZEROES IN ON MATH ACTION PLAN ROLAND CILLIERS rcilliers@metroland.com GRADE 3 counted by ones to determine the answer 9+6 (counting on fingers) had difficulty counting forwards and backwards when crossing over a decade number 77% 28% GRADE 2 had difficulty counting forward from a number other than 1 had difficulty counting backwards starting at 1844% 54% GRADE 1 of students could not subitize beyond 4 of students had difficulty adding +1/-1 and +2/-228% 33% Struggles with Math Torstar graphic "My child in Grade 1 comes to me with a math problem and I have to start Googling terms and the new methods, which I think is fantastic." - Patrick Murphy