Join the conversation

Luajean Bryan is a star.

Just ask her principal at Walker Valley High School in Tennessee, the students who flock to her advanced math and science classes, or the people at USA Today who named her to their 2006 all-star teaching team. 

Bryan recently spoke with us about the innovative teaching practices that have won her local admiration and national attention.  Her emphasis on hands-on learning is exciting students and swelling enrollments in higher-level science and math classes. With support from the NEA Foundation, for example, she accompanies students into caves and on untethered hot-air balloon trips to help them learn first-hand about mathematic and scientific principles that govern the world around them.

Read the highlights from the interview.  

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: You're credited with increasing enrollment in high-level math and science courses.  I was wondering how you managed to do this.

BRYAN: I found that students were reluctant to take the higher level math in particular, and oftentimes the science as well, so I launched a program that would allow them to have hands-on experience with projects that would reinforce all the concepts they're learning in class.  It would complement the lecture, but it would also be something that would entice them-something exciting that would generate some interest.

Also, their grading would not depend entirely on tests and quizzes.  It would be also based on their project work, and because grading was not totally relying on tests and quizzes the students felt more comfortable. 

 PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: I've read about one particular set of projects that you do, called "From the Earth to the Sky."  Could you describe that project?

BRYAN: "From the Earth to the Sky" was a dual project.  The "Earth" part combined biology and pre-calculus.  We did an overnight cavern exploration where we spent the night in a cave and collected data. Then the pre-calculus people were responsible for doing the data analysis, and representing it graphically, numerically, and analytically.

The "Sky" part of the project was combining physics and calculus, and [the students] took un-tethered hot air balloon flights.  The students actually went up in the hot air balloon and collected temperature and barometric pressure and [other] data. They used their physics concepts to explain how the balloons behaved, and how the graphs looked later was explained by the students in calculus.  They were able to apply a lot of their calculus concepts to the data that they brought back.  So it was really, really great.  The students loved it.

I used these projects to launch the program, but my enrollment has stayed up and, even though we don't do the hot air balloon flights every year (because they're rather expensive), we'll do something else that doesn't have to cost quite so much.  I found out it's not the cost so much as it is the interest.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: And so have you done other similar kinds of projects that haven't cost quite as much?

BRYAN: With pre-calculus, one of the things we do is [the students] pick a quadratic equation, and then they have to build a three-dimensional parabolic device [of that equation].  They locate the focal point, and then they project a marshmallow there and use solar heat to cook that marshmallow.  So it's really fun-they love that and its kind of competitive. 

 They do all of their project building outside of class.  But the work they do on those fortifies so much what they do in class.  I have had really, really good success with it.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  So there really has been a lot of willingness, it sounds like, from the students to put in extra time.

BRYAN: One of my students said, "Ms. Bryan, it's a love-hate type thing.  I love the projects, but I hate the projects."  He said, "I hate it when I'm working on it and I can't get it to work, and my teammates don't have an idea and we struggle trying to work through the problem-solving.  But I love it when we're finished because I'm so proud of what we've done.  And then when we answer questions on tests, they seem so easy for me now."

Even kids that said, "I never did like math before," [say] "I love this."

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  In getting more students involved in higher level classes, have you found it possible to encourage students who've traditionally not done well in those classes, or who have struggled with math and science?

BRYAN: I have.  I even have students tell me-they'll write it in their portfolio or they'll even write cards to me and say, "I never thought I was good at math before and I thought geometry was as high as I would go.  And now I have taken pre-calculus and I've signed up for AP calculus next year."

It always surprises me, because I think, "You're good at math, you have the potential," but they don't have the confidence.  I think that's it.  More than ability, they're lacking confidence.  And if you can build their confidence by really seeing that they can do a project and they understand concepts that are really quite abstract otherwise, it gives them a boost.

Like when we do the marshmallows.  We record the temperature of the marshmallow as it cooks.  They do the data analysis on that and they actually calculate the rate of change of temperature.  Now, this is just pre-calculus, but that's a calculus concept-rate of change.  And when they can verbalize that at pre-calculus, it really is a big boost.  I point out to them-I say, "Do you realize that's calculus that you're thinking right now?," and they are really excited about that.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  So they're really coming up with the concepts on their own?

BRYAN: They really are.  You ask them to find the average rate of temperature change, but they figure out that they can do that by the slope formula.  They get a little boost occasionally if they get stuck, but I try to minimize my assistance because it kind of stifles their own creative juices.  I really like to see them discover it because they remember it so much better if they discover it on their own.  You lead them into it - it's like guiding them to water, and then they drink it. 

To learn more about Ms. Bryan's projects, be sure to check out our story "From the Earth to the Sky"