DAPHNE, Ala.— Dr. Susan Atkins Pruet, program director of the Mobile Area Education Foundation and Daphne resident, will serve on an Alabama Public Television education task force along with 12 math and science professionals.

The task force—a partnership between the Alabama Mathematics, Science and Technology Initiative and Alabama Public Television—will develop mathematics content for middle schools and distribute the materials to educators throughout Alabama.

“The central focus is around proportional reasoning,” Pruet said. Proportional reasoning involves analyzing geometric shapes and interpreting ratios. An example would be reading a map.

“Proportional reasoning has been defined through needs-assessment data to be one of the hardest areas for students to understand,” Nancy Hill, vice president of educational services for Alabama Public Television, said.

“It’s about developing an understanding of when it’s appropriate to use proportions in problem-solving situations,” Pruet said.

The task force will work with APT’s education department to create original, online content that can be accessed by teachers, parents and students through APTPLUS, Alabama Public Television’s free multimedia online resource.

“The APTPLUS is digital curriculum content,” Hill said. “We have two databases that we lease through Discovery Education. This content will be put up in a non-password protected area on APTTPlus.” Discovery Education is an online video-on-demand teaching service that helps students improve memory retention and test-taking skills.

“Teachers can sign up for APTPlus by going online,” Pruet said, referring to the APTPlus.org Web site. “Any teacher can access the new content.’

Baldwin County students will use the newly created content, provided their teachers sign up for APTPLUS, Pruet said.

“Everybody is going to benefit by accessing these materials,” she said.

The math content will focus on proportional reasoning for eighth-grade students and will include video clips, Macromedia Flash animations, lesson plans and interactive elements.

One of the task force’s goals is to help increase standardized math test scores, according to Pruet.

“It’s developmental,” Pruet said. “We need to look carefully at what we’re doing in kindergarten through third grade to support proportional reasoning in the middle grades.”

Daphne educators seem to agree. W.J. Carroll Intermediate Principal Dana Horst said she believes the state should boost funding for the math program. For instance, she said, in sixth grade, Alabama students scored 91 percent proficiency in reading to only 78 percent in math.

In seventh grade, students were at 87 percent in reading to just 64 percent in math.

In eighth grade, students earned 82 percent in reading versus 72 percent in math.

Pruet will work alongside 12 educators on the task force. They are: Cathy Jones, math specialist for AMSTI in Montgomery; Dr. Gary Martin and Dr. Marilyn Struchens, mathematics education professors and co-directors of Team Math at Auburn University; Dr. Faye Clark, co-director of Greater Birmingham Math Partnership; Dr. Ann Dominick, project director of Greater Birmingham Math Partnership and instructor at Oxford High School; Jeanne Simpson, with AMSTI at the University of Huntsville; Bernadette Mullins, math instructor at Birmingham-Southern College; Joanne Taylor, math coach at Avondale Elementary School in Birmingham; Anita Forest, math instructor at Cullman Middle School; Brenda Terry, executive director of the Alabama Mathematics, Science and Technology Education Coalition and outreach special projects coordinator for the University of Huntsville’s Institute for Science Education; and Judy Matthews, principal of Tarrant Middle School in Birmingham.

The partnership is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The two-year grant will focus on math, but local support could be extended to develop into a long-term initiative that can later address the science, technology and engineering needs of Alabama’s students.

Alabama Public Television provides educational resources for children and adults through online services, analog and digital television programming, documentary production and outreach services, according to a news release.

AMSTI—designed by a committee of K-12 educators, higher education representatives and business leaders—is the Alabama Department of Education’s initiative to improve math and science teaching statewide.