Summer camp for gifted math students at UNT next month

While many students at Austin's Lake Travis High School spent last July sleeping late, swimming and savoring their time away from academics, James Tabat spent most of the month completing a semester's worth of Algebra II. And he plans to spend most of this July studying pre-calculus.

Tabat will be one of about 50 students attending UNT's Summer Math Institute July 7-27. He is one of five students returning for a second year at SMI. The institute, which began last year, provides middle and high school students who are gifted in mathematics with a chance to learn up to a semester's worth of high school mathematics in three weeks.

"The institute gave me more math and problem-solving skills, and it was a good opportunity to see what college was like," says Tabat, who will be a sophomore at Lake Travis this August. "I also made some good friends there."

SMI is sponsored by UNT's Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science. Twenty-eight students attended the first institute last year.

All SMI students stay at UNT in the TAMS residence hall. Four resident assistants — UNT juniors and seniors who are resident assistants for TAMS during the academic year — will supervise them.

Students may take Algebra I, Algebra II, geometry or pre-calculus during the three weeks of SMI. Teachers from the McKinney and Brownsville school districts teach the classes and live on the UNT campus with the students.

On their first day at SMI, the students are tested to determine their levels of competency in the subject. They are then assigned to do certain chapters in textbooks.

SMI Director Wendy Boyd-Brown says the program is designed to allow each student to progress at his or her own pace. Classes are limited to no more than 15 students so each student receives individual help, says Boyd-Brown, who is an academic counselor at TAMS.

"I've had a lot of parents tell me that their students are bored in regular classrooms because teachers design classes around other students who aren't as accelerated in mathematics. And smaller school districts often don't have classes just for accelerated students," she says.

In addition to their teachers, SMI students will receive help from four teaching assistants — two recent TAMS graduates and two students who will be entering their second year at TAMS this fall.

Once an SMI student completes a textbook chapter, he or she will take a test and must score at least 90 to go on to the next chapter. Before starting a new chapter, the student will take a pretest to assess his or her weaknesses, Boyd-Brown says.

Students are in class for six hours Monday through Friday and for three hours on Saturday mornings. They also attend mandatory evening study hall, led by teaching assistants Monday through Friday.

"It is a very intense program. A student must not only be talented in math to succeed in SMI, but must have the motivation and desire to keep learning," Boyd-Brown says.

Cherie Parks, who will be returning for her second year of teaching at SMI, says students in the institute are among the most motivated she's encountered.

"The first day they were here, they asked for homework," says Parks, a former teacher at McKinney's Ruth Dowell Middle School who now works as an actuary.

She says she chose to teach at SMI because she prefers teaching middle school students, but she also likes teaching higher mathematics.

"I got the best of both worlds. I also really wanted to spend lots of time with the students. They have a lot of motivation and drive, but ultimately, they're still normal kids," she says.

Ulrich Weiss, a pre-calculus and physics teacher at Brownsville's Rivera High School, is also returning for his second year of teaching at SMI. He points out that completing an entire semester of math in three weeks is not always the goal of SMI students.

"Getting to work on math topics at their own pace is often more important to them. Mastering a topic gives the students a great sense of accomplishment," he says.

At the end of the three weeks, the students take comprehensive exams in their subjects. The teachers complete evaluations of the students and write recommendations to their school districts, noting if they should receive academic credit for the subject.

"Many districts will allow the credit by exam," Boyd-Brown says.

Robert Spraggins of Strawn, a small community in Palo Pinto County, received credit for Algebra I after attending SMI last year. He is returning this year to take Algebra II.

"I'm pretty used to being challenged in learning, but the study skills I learned in SMI actually helped me do better in all my classes, not just math classes," says Spraggins, who will be a freshman in the Strawn High School this fall.

SMI students don't spend all their time in the classroom or in study hall. They also have time for traditional summer activities organized by their resident assistants. Miniature golf, swimming, a volleyball tournament, a talent show and trips for shopping and ice cream were among last year's activities.

Because she stayed on campus, Parks helped with many of these activities.

"I immersed myself in everything the students did. I even went jogging with some of them every morning," she says. "You do have to keep a certain distance at first to establish authority, but then you become a mentor whom the students see as a normal person. And these kids are such perfectionists that they need to have someone with whom they feel safe making mistakes in the classroom."

Weiss calls the one-on-one interaction between SMI teachers and students "a great experience."

"It's not very often that I meet students who are really interested in mathematics, and most of them are interested in science as well," he says. "It's great to see them succeed."

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• Summer I numbers up 14.6 percent
• Library welcomes Cyber Café with Starbucks products
• NT Daily Sounds begins web broadcasting
• Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science selects new assistant dean
• Farewell events planned to honor Hurleys
• Eighteen earn 2002-03 Mayborn Scholarships
• UNT professor builds library for Jamaican town in need
• Time to sign up to welcome freshmen on Sunday Fun Day

homepage