RAPID CITY - Jane Pfeifle is sold on inquiry-based math.

"I don't profess to know everything about it," she said. "But I like what I see in my own house."

The Rapid City mother of three children, ages 16, 14 and 10, remembers one particular experience that opened her eyes to inquiry-based mathematics. Driving to the bank to deposit several checks one day, Pfeifle asked her kids to quickly add them together. The 10-year-old, the child with the most inquiry-based math experience, completed the task first.

"I watch him solve three- and four-digit problems and create story problems … just lickety-split," she said. "I've found myself starting to do it now."

Five years ago, a district initiative incorporated inquiry-based learning to the Rapid City Area Schools. It began in the elementary schools and progressed to the middle and high schools, said Stevens High School principal John Julius.

Inquiry-based is really the latest "catch phrase" for an approach that has been around for some time, said Stevens math teacher Tom Keck. Many teachers have been using inquiry-based approaches in their teaching for years, but this is the first time it's been implemented on a broad scale, he said.

The goal of inquiry-based math is to teach students critical thinking. In the inquiry-based approach, students are challenged to go beyond memorization and learn to independently solve problems, Julius said.

"It challenges the student to think about how it's done, not just learning to manipulate a formula," Julius said. "It gives them a depth of understanding that they don't get with the traditional approach."

The inquiry-based method ushered in techniques and methods that differed from more traditional approaches to teaching math. Rather than lecture and demonstration, inquiry-based math encourages a hands-on approach, Keck said.

Students are often grouped together and charged with the task of creating their own math problems or solving the problem with several different approaches. They are encouraged to visualize how a problem is solved and explore how it applies to life.

Working in teams is a major component of the approach, Keck said.

"What you may have been used to in the past was a traditional lecture with some demonstration; and there's plenty of research out there that says lecturing is one of the least effective ways of learning materials," Keck said.

Retention following lectures is as low as 5 percent after a 24-hour period, he said.

"When you can get kids actively involved, discussing things with each other and trying to explain things to somebody else, then the retention shoots up to around 80-, 90-plus percent," Keck said.

The transition to inquiry-based math has jarred the comfort level for many parents and prompted plenty of phone calls to schools, Julius said. Most often, it's because parents find themselves unable to help their children with homework. Others worry their kids aren't learning the math facts.

When the method was first introduced to her kids, Pfeifle approached a teacher with that concern. "I remember talking to one of their teachers about it," she said.

As the teaching continued, however, Pfeifle began to better understand the benefit of inquiry-based, especially when her daughter told her, "The reason I like it (math) is you figure it out for yourself and then it stays with you."

"They are frustrated because they don't know how to help their kids, and that's a legitimate concern," Keck said of parents. "But the mathematics hasn't changed. It's just our approach to teaching it … The kids have become an active part in it."

To remedy the problem, several Rapid City schools hold math nights that give teachers the opportunity to demonstrate the teaching method to parents. At Stevens' annual Parent Academy on Thursday, Keck will teach two sessions on the technique.

Keck calls the shift to inquiry-based math critical, especially in light of recent studies that show the United States lagging behind in math worldwide.

"This, to me, is one of the most obvious changes that has to be made in American education," he said. "I'm not saying that what we have done in the past has been wrong … but I think that with the way our society is developing … we need to go far beyond what we are providing with the traditional approach. We need kids to be critical thinkers."

The concerns and questions from parents about inquiry-based math have begun to dwindle as more of them understand the method and more kids are trained in it, Julius said.

Keck is pleased to see the growing acceptance, attributing much of it to the continued and growing success of the math students themselves.

"I like to look at it as a philosophical shift back to the days of the Greeks. They weren't solely interested in procedural development," he said. "It's getting over the hump of being fed information to actually digging for the information."

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at 394-8414 or lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com.