Success Spotlight: Scott Harrison, the Power of One

Scott Harrison has been a teacher for 24 years, dedicated to Freeland Elementary School in rural Michigan, and is the sole math instructor for all 6th-grade students in his district. 

Mr. Harrison is the last stop on the road to middle school math, and he takes this responsibility seriously. Although he's the only 6th-grade math teacher, the Carnegie Learning Middle School Math Solution is the partner he needs to ensure his students have access to the high-quality learning opportunities they deserve. 

He loves that it fosters critical thinking, meaningful discussions, and group collaborations, replacing tedious note-taking and repetitive practice problems.

Read on and delve into Mr. Harrison's thoughts on the program's impact on his teaching and students!

Embracing a new approach to success

How did you start using the Carnegie Learning Math Solution?

This is the fourth program I've used during the 24 years I've been a teacher in Freeland Community School District. Every program that we had tried previously was packaging the same math differently. However, it needed to be updated to the needs of our students. 

Our students do not want to sit for half an hour, take notes, work on homework for 20 minutes, and then go home and work for another 20 minutes. That's what every program was like until we got to Carnegie Learning. 

And now, they're excited to get here. I have kids running down the hall to get into the classroom because they know it's a very low-pressure environment.

It sounds like your classroom is a fun place to be! Can you describe it to me?

I have ten whiteboards around the room that are two feet by three feet, and a lot of the work they do is at stations on the whiteboards. Students can easily erase mistakes, but they can also display them to classmates and the teacher. 

I can tell them to look at a problem and talk about it, then come up with some ideas on their whiteboard, and then we brainstorm as a group.

These are things I would never have done 20 years ago. I never would have imagined that this is what math can be like.

A renewed passion for teaching

Tell us more about how the Middle School Math solution has impacted your teaching.

Carnegie Learning completely changed the way I teach. The program allows me to talk more with the students instead of talking to them, which is very different from 20 years ago. 

It's not an old-school classroom. When you walk into my room, it can be noisy. Kids are moving around. There are just great conversations taking place. 

At the end of the day, I'm not exhausted. I'm setting the lesson up and letting them run with it. It was like a breath of fresh air. It was fun to come to work and know that we had activities planned for the kids where they didn't have to be in their seats for the entire class period.

Luckily, Carnegie Learning came by just in time for me. I needed it to keep me motivated so I could do the best job for these kids.

What does your implementation of the Middle School Math Solution look like?

We give students one day each week that's dedicated MATHia time, typically a Friday. This gives me the opportunity to meet with kids individually or in small groups while others are working on MATHia, or sometimes I can put them in small groups based on their MATHia workspace.

Once a week is MATHia; however, I expect the kids to put in a total of 30 to 45 min on their own working on MATHia outside of the classroom, and for 90% of the students, this is okay! But for the others, I needed to come up with a system to help them stay organized, so I created a MATHia tracker. 

Students really like the times when we use the textbook because it's very different from what they had in 5th grade. For them, the textbook in 5th grade was daunting. You could flip it to almost any random page and have problems to work out.

On the first day of school, we do a little book walk and look through MATHbook, and they're like, “There are no long sets of problems here we have to do.” It's a lot of pictures, discussions, and great vocab that we're going to learn about.

Impact on students: A fresh perspective on math

What has been the impact of the Middle School Math Solution on your students?

I have kids who tell me they're no longer afraid of math. And it's not just what I'm seeing with my current students—I see years of effort put into this. 

I run a tutoring program after school for anybody who wants to stay for extra MATHia help. It’s Monday through Thursday for an hour after school. And I have high school kids who ask if they can come and work with the students in my room.

These are my former students. Some of them say they weren't that strong at math. But after going through their 7th and 8th-grade classes, they really like math now and want to come back and help the kids struggling with 6th-grade math.

I have high school juniors and seniors coming back, sitting down next to a 6th grader, and they're like, ”I remember doing a workspace like this. I love doing this problem,” and they're there to help them with it.

It's not that the students don't want me to help them, but when they can have classmates or somebody a little older help them, it's such a great experience.

Anything you’re looking forward to?

I look forward to returning to work at the end of the summer because I have so many experiences where the kids love math and like being here.

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With his dedication and passion, Mr. Harrison has transformed his classroom into a vibrant space where students explore math concepts, practice critical thinking, and collaborate. And many love it enough to come back—the highest praise!