A resource room with technology to help individuals learn mathematics has been installed at St Joseph’s Teachers’ College, with the hope that student-teachers will overcome their fear of this important subject to the benefit of

their students.

The Hazel Keating Resource Room — equipped with computers, literacy and numeracy software, such as Hooked on Phonics and Early Success, television and DVD players and other equipment — was officially handed over to the Kingston-based institution on September 28 by the Digicel Foundation.

The foundation, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, had already sponsored 15 enrichment rooms in schools islandwide at a cost of $33.6 million, but the centre at St Joseph’s gives student-teachers an opportunity to familiarise themselves with technology before they graduate fully to the classroom.

For Cheryl Foreman, vice-principal of St Joseph’s, the resource room is a dream of hers come to life.

“I’ve always been concerned about how enumerate our society is. With the opening of this new enrichment centre here at our school, we can better instruct our student-teachers on different ways and methods to teach mathematics,” she said.

Digicel Foundation previously concentrated on placing the centres in schools with serious literacy and numeracy problems, but the new centre would enable student-teachers to be better prepared, commented the foundation’s executive director Major General Robert Neish.

“By integrating this curriculum into the teachers’ college’s diploma and degrees, many more teachers will have a wider understanding of how to incorporate non-traditional teaching strategies to help our students who are underperformers, particularly in mathematics,” he said.

Dr Phylicia Marshall of the Education Ministry’s tertiary unit commended Digicel for its insight in placing an enrichment room at the college.

“Very often when initiatives are undertaken, the colleges that prepare teachers for the education system are overlooked, leaving additional funding to be sought to train teachers who need the skills and knowledge for

the sustainability of the programme,” she noted.

Cecelia Solomon, head of the college’s mathematics department, expressed confidence that new ways of teaching will help students overcome their fear of the subject.

“I think most students were intimidated because of the methodology that was used over the years, but now that we are trying to explain things in ways that make sense to them, I find that the fear is diminishing,” she said.

Immediate past principal of St Joseph’s Hazel Keating, for whom

the building is named, shared Solomon’s view.

“Because of the technology here, our students will have a better understanding of what they are teaching, develop confidence in themselves and have the opportunity to transfer that confidence to their students. Soon we hope there will be fewer people having a phobia about mathematics,” she said.