“This is more real-world math,” says Nicholas Garcia, a senior in Pellizzolo's class. “We have the opportunity and freedom to choose what we want to target for our dataset, and he tells us how we work and complement it. [in] our daily life. ”
Mr. Pellizzolo is one of eight math teachers in the popular data science course offered at most schools in the Oxnard Union High School District. The Oxnard Union High School District is an economically diverse school system in northwest Los Angeles, with 80% of its students identifying as Hispanic. The district introduced the class in fall 2020 to provide an alternative math course for students who may struggle with traditional middle school and high school math courses such as Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. .
California is at the center of a heated debate about the math knowledge students really need to succeed in college and the workforce. As math scores nationally decline, some educators are looking to focus on algebra to engage more students and develop relevant skills in a world increasingly reliant on data. He argues that there is a need to reconsider the standard mathematics pathway. At least 17 states now offer data science, an interdisciplinary field that combines computer programming, mathematics and statistics, as a high school math option, according to the organization Data Science for Everyone. Her two states, Oregon and Ohio, offer it as an alternative to Algebra II.
However, other math educators have decried the move away from Algebra II, arguing that Algebra II remains the core of math instruction and necessary for students to succeed in STEM careers and beyond. are doing. In California, the group that sets admissions requirements for the state's public university system (known as the AG) is allowing students to use data science in place of Algebra II to help more students qualify for college. The disagreement erupted in October 2020 after the government announced that it would do so. Mathematics professors, math advocates and some high school educators argued that the state was watering down standards and setting students up to fail in college.
Then last July, the organization reversed its previous decision, and in February it announced that data science courses (and, to the surprise of some experts, even long-approved statistics classes) would be replaced by Algebra II. announced new recommendations stating that it cannot be used as a replacement for It remains unclear how this decision will change university admissions. Additional guidance is expected in May.
Oxnard educators say they remain unsure how these decisions will affect the courses they offer to students. They argue that students need real-world mathematics now more than ever to succeed in the field. They argue that the expansion of data science (about 500 students in the Oxnard area have used it so far) has changed the way teachers and students approach mathematics.
“Data science is changing the way we look at math,” said Jay Sorensen, Oxnard's educational technology coordinator who helped design the class. “It changed their perspective and their view of what math is, because they probably didn't like math, or were frustrated by math, or hated math.”
In Oxnard, many students stop taking math after their senior year of high school, and the district has been trying to fix that problem for nearly a decade. In 2015, then-Deputy Director of Educational Services Tom McCoy jokingly asked Sonny Sayjo, the district's math instruction specialist, “Can you teach math for poets?”
McCoy, who took over as Oxnard's superintendent in 2020, said this led to high school students struggling with math classes and not planning to pursue science or math fields or attend a four-year college. It is said that a discussion has begun about what kind of mathematics classes would be beneficial for students.
Inspired by attending a UCLA seminar on data science for high school students, Sajor and Sorensen designed the new course and partnered with educational technology vendor Bootstrap World. Oxnard's first data science class generated enough student interest that the district expanded the course to more schools and its popularity continues to grow.
But not all Oxnard educators participated. For example, some math teachers questioned whether a data science course that had been approved as an advanced statistics course equivalent to an Advanced Placement statistics course was really equivalent to an advanced math course.
But data science teachers at Oxnard Union say there are benefits.
“It exposes kids to really practical math, and it’s also creative,” says Allison Otti Halstead, who teaches calculus and AP statistics along with honors at Rancho Campana High School.
Most data science classes at Oxnard have a mix of students who are using the course to take required third-year math and students who have already taken Algebra II. Students who took data science as a junior in 2022-2023 were more likely to enroll in a math class as a senior, according to district data. Only about 10 percent of those students enrolled in Mathematics III, the comprehensive math class equivalent to Algebra II. More are enrolled in statistics, math for financial literacy, and other classes.
Nizshaly Dimapiris, a senior at Channel Islands High School, said she is taking data science and AP calculus at the same time in preparation for a computer engineering course in college. “I thought this class would be more helpful because it involves coding, which is completely new to me,” Dimapiris said.
Some students said it helped them understand the math concepts introduced in past classes. Jaya Richardson, a senior at Oxnard High School majoring in data science, said she's not “good at math.” In her third year, she took Mathematics III and She didn't get the grades she wanted.
Her counselor suggested she take data science instead of having her repeat classes for her upper grades. She is happy with the decision, she said, and plans to pursue a degree in biology at a campus in the University of California or California State University system.
“It's still stressful. It's still difficult, but it's more beneficial,” she said of the data science class. We're still doing the math here, but it breaks it down in a way that I can understand. ”
But many STEM professors are concerned about the consequences of experiments like Oxnard.
Jelani Nelson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, says most data science courses offered in high schools are low-level, and college admissions courses at UC and CSU are building upon alternative courses in Algebra II. Alleges non-compliance with standards. Students' early mathematics lessons.
Without an understanding of what he calls “fundamental mathematics”: Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, students will not be successful in college courses in computer science, mathematics, technology, economics, or even the arts. Deaf, he says. For example, perspective drawing uses geometry and algebra. Introductory data science classes in college are also built on these math concepts, so students who take data science in high school but do not take Algebra II are unlikely to be successful in the subject. he said.
Adrian Mims, founder of the Calculus Project, a nonprofit organization that works to increase the number of Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and low-income students taking advanced mathematics, says that data science is the same as Algebra II. He said that replacing it with “would have unintended consequences.''
Standardized tests such as the SAT and college math entrance exams cover Algebra II, he said. He said he was concerned that students who chose data science instead would be stuck with remedial math courses, noting, “It's not because they can't learn math, but because they're making a decision that deprives them of the opportunity to learn that content in high school. “This is because I defeated him in high school.” To do well. ”
Rather than replacing Algebra II, data science concepts can be incorporated into the Algebra II course, and a data science course that includes parts of Algebra II and geometry can be offered as an elective to students who have already completed Algebra II. That's possible, Nelson and his colleagues said.
However, some people do not share such concerns. Pamela Birdman, founder of Just Equations, a nonprofit organization that rethinks the role of traditional math pathways in high school, says many students who take Algebra II in high school struggle with the subject and learn little. We point to data that shows that there are no. She said new research suggests courses like data science may be “more likely to lead students into STEM” than traditional preparatory math courses.
Despite the recent focus on admissions requirements for the University of California, in the last admissions cycle, fewer of the approximately 206,000 applicants said they took Data Science or Statistics instead of Algebra II. There were only about 400 people, he noted.
“I worry that the debate around data science and Algebra II is kind of a distraction,” she says.
Oxnard teachers and school guidance counselors are wary of intervening in math discussions with their higher-educated colleagues. But they are not afraid to voice their dissatisfaction with what they see as a disconnect between student needs and higher education.
Daniel Cook, learning, instruction and technology coach at Camarillo High School, said students are entering high school behind in math, and the pandemic will only exacerbate the problem. However, universities still expect students to have mastered the concepts of Algebra II and close the door to those who have not.
At Camarillo High School, approximately 44 percent of sophomores fail to qualify for AG because of math, Cook said, and they receive the message early on that they are not college content. By fourth grade, this number increases to about 25 percent.
Traditional math curricula are “fundamentally focused on preparing students for STEM courses in college,” Cook said. He said the July vote and subsequent policy recommendation to exclude data science as an option for college applicants was a “slap in the face to students with non-STEM-related interests.”
Oxnard educators are trying to cope with the uncertainty created by the state's higher education system.Data Because his science no longer counts toward college admissions, Oxnard ultimately Restrict to students who have already taken or are currently taking the course, Algebra II, according to Sajor. The district is also considering a pilot course that would integrate Algebra II and data science.
Such courses may ultimately be better for the district, Sajo said, because they help more students grapple with Algebra II concepts while also introducing them to coding and data science. said.
Still, data science students like Emma Dai Valenzuela say the current format of the class is invaluable. Valenzuela, her senior at Pacifica High School, said the course allowed her to meet her graduation requirements while actually succeeding in her math class.
She transferred to this class after struggling in the Mathematics III and General Algebra II courses, she said. Valenzuela plans to join the Navy before going to college, and her recruiter told her the course would give her a basic understanding of coding and math, which she could then build on. He said he was hurt.
“This is more hands-on,” she said. “We're always doing new things.”
About this story data science produced by hechinger reportis a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.Please sign up for Hechinger Newsletter.
