An Overview of the West Virginia Department of Education’s math4life Campaign.

What is math4life? West Virginia’s math4Life initiative is a comprehensive and intensive statewide effort to improve student mathematics performance throughout the state over five years. The WVDE seeks to work with counties and schools throughout the state to institute best practices, challenging pedagogy, engaging technology, and student engagement strategies to improve students’ mathematical achievement. We are currently in Year 2 of our five year math4life initiative.

Just imagine what you can do with math… How many of you have seen the movie “Hidden Figures”? In case you have not, the movie focuses a group of African American female mathematicians who worked for NASA during the era of the Space Race. The main character in the biographical film is Katherine Johnson. Johnson was born in West Virginia, went to West Virginia State College, and later became known as a human calculator of sorts. She was a master of computing manual, tedious calculations which ultimately moved the United States forward in the Space Race. In the movie, there were several antagonist characters. The one I am thinking about was the IBM 7090 computer.

The Antagonist This Big Green monster was set to replace Katherine Johnson and her peers. Rather than fight the changing world and their changing roles, the women embraced it. The women, who were mathematical masters with their skills unrivaled, utilized the dispositions learned from mathematics and adapted.

Perseverance, problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration were all skills our heroes from Hidden Figures developed through their learning of mathematics. They were prepared to face the looming reality of change. So we must move our children forward to embrace the new, ever changing challenges of this world. The world no longer has much need for calculators. We have calculators in our pockets. We have apps which can solve math problems for us. We can google anything. We are in desperate need of critical and creative thinkers to harness these resources to move our world forward yet again. The very heart of the math4life initiative in West Virginia is about empowering our students to tackle new challenges. We want student utilizing the critical thinking skills they have developed in math to make great changes in our world. The WVDE recognizes that the power to make a difference in the life of each child is in the hands of our local educators. The department is committed to assisting our teachers, principles, administrators, and school districts to move our state forward. We must move from mathematics being the performance subject of the assembly line days to the learning subject of the digital age. Katherine Johnson and a list of others from our state are examples of what the skills learned from mathematics can do. Just imagine what our students can do with mathematics.

The Vision of math4life The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) will: 1) ensure West Virginia educators are well-prepared to teach the West Virginia College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Mathematics for all learners; 2) improve students’ mathematical learning and achievement through the use of proven educational practices; and 3) assist local county boards of education that are implementing the math4life Campaign. The WVDE, along with its dedicated shareholders, will support local county boards, schools, teachers, students, and families by delivering best practices, instructional resources/strategies, extended learning opportunities, technological supports, professional learning, and a more powerful focus to support achievement of the West Virginia College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Mathematics by all learners.

WVDE’s Mission for math4life The WVDE will ensure a comprehensive system of support to elevate mathematics achievement for all learners in our public school system, thus supporting the goals of the West Virginia Board of Education/WVDE Strategic Plan Goals, which: Encourage a lifelong pursuit of knowledge and skills; Promote a culture of responsibility, personal well-being, and community engagement; and Respond to workforce and economic demands.

WVDE’s Goals for math4life The WVDE will: Develop and share exemplars, rigorous mathematics standards frameworks built around best pedagogical practices, instructional resources/strategies, extended learning opportunities, and technology supports; Create professional learning supports for local school districts that focus on a comprehensive approach to mathematics instruction; Provide each county and school with their mathematics performance results so they can determine strengths and weaknesses to be addressed in schools and classrooms; Support county-level leadership teams focused on problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking; improving student learning and performance in mathematics; as well as expanding educator content understanding and pedagogy; Encourage the utilization of extended learning opportunities to include blended learning through virtual schools and other types of learning beyond the classroom; and Collaborate with Institutions of Higher Education to align and strengthen offerings and programs for pre- and in-service educators.

math4life Website Overview Visit the math4life website at: wvde.us/math4life/

#math4lifeWV Showcase all the great things happening in your schools, classrooms, and the world. The WVDE is on Facebook and Twitter.

The Math Pledge www.mathpledge.com I pledge to approach math with an open mind. I will celebrate my mistakes as opportunities to grow. I will be confident and work hard to understand math and won't give up. www.mathpledge.com Make your commitment known to us by taking the Math Pledge. Take this pledge whether you are a student, teacher, parent, administrator, math teacher, not a math teacher, it doesn’t matter. We need all hands on deck for our math4life campaign. To this date, over 25 thousand people have taken the pledge. I encourage you to do the same. Encourage other people to take the pledge. Math is often viewed as the gatekeeper subject for careers and colleges. With math4life, we want all of our students in West Virginia busting down those gates. As we have discussed, the skills developed in math transcend the classroom and are needed for every day life. Math is seen in so many areas in life whether it is arts, music, science, nature, sports, economics, government, and so much more. We have the charge to bring the math to life for our children. We have to give our students the skills and dispositions to be successful as they tackle the new and changing issues of our world.