Educator: Understanding individual styles key to addressing maths crisis

Educator Velonique Bowen believes she has the answer to remedy the low pass rates in Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) mathematics, using what she refers to as premium tutoring.

Bowen, executive director of Get Aced Academic Services Limited, made the assertion as education officials grapple with a 34 per cent pass rate in mathematics, a subject that is considered compulsory for students to pass if they want to access tertiary education.

Jamaican students had a pass rate of 33 per cent, compared to 36 per cent across the Caribbean.

Bowen said her students recorded a 100 per cent pass rate for mathematics, but did not indicate how many sat the exam.

Failure in mathematics could be a thing of the past, according to Bowen, a former festival queen, if the strategy she proffers is considered workable.

Arguing that diversification in the classroom is paramount, Bowen noted that a longstanding fear of mathematics means that, now more than ever, there needs to be a new way of teaching the subject.

“First, we have to identify some of the issues or some of the problems that are resulting in what we’re seeing,” Bowen said.

“One of the issues that we’re seeing is that while the society is advancing and new things are happening, the teaching styles are remaining the same.

“We have students who are so technologically savvy, they learn quickly but differently, and it is up to us, the educators, to ensure that we are doing them justice [and] we’re not leaving them behind.

“I also believe fundamentally that at the foundation there is still a problem. I think that in 2024 every single student, when they’re entering schools, these schools need to be assessing their learning styles so when you have a class as a teacher of maybe 40 students, and I know it may sound like wishful thinking, you need to know the learning style of every student in your classroom; that way you’re able to curate your strategies to target everybody.”

Learning style relates to the different ways a person takes in, understands and remembers information. There are four major ones – visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

Visual learners rely mostly on graphic aids to learn and remember things. The auditory style is learning best by listening, through music, video clips, and conversations. Read and write learners rely heavily on reading and writing, preferring to use their textbooks and to take notes, while the kinesthetic learning style is a hands-on approach, used along with visual and auditory styles.

Bowen said Get Aced Academy has been offering tutoring in a new way, which is called premium tutoring.

According to her, “Understanding the learning style of the student is important. No student gets into Get Aced without us assessing that student to know their learning style, to know what they’re most comfortable with, so that we can ensure that we’re creating our strategies to meet them.

“So, as it relates to teaching in a different way, sometimes even a different environment is necessary, taking them outside of the classroom, getting them involved in a different way.”

Bowen said parental involvement is also critical as, while some parents may not be able to directly help with lessons, they can help instill discipline in the children.

editorial@gleanerjm.com