Godslove Ampah (right), with math teacher Tonya Howard: "Whenever I look at an equation, I just want to use my brain to figure it out." Time to math! The standard algorithm way, at Troup. Troup fifth-grader Godslove Ampah used to struggle most with math, back when she was still living in her home country of Ghana. Now, three years later, that’s completely changed — and Godslove finds multiplication challenges fun, thanks to the help of a local teacher working to make sure students know more than one way to solve a problem.Godslove was one of 20 students in a third-floor classroom at the 259 Edgewood Ave. K‑8 neighborhood school Wednesday morning, as Troup math and science educator Tonya Howard guided her students through a review of multi-digit multiplication during an hour-long math class. The class began with each student grabbing their Chromebook laptops and math workbooks before taking their seats. Howard pointed to the directions on the classroom smartboard for a ​“Do Now” introductory review question. The question tasked the students with finding the volume of a rectangular toy box that was four feet long, three feet wide, and two feet tall. “What’s the formula for volume?” Howard asked. One student called out, ​“Length times width times height.” Soon after, the class agreed that the volume of the box was 24 cubic feet.Inside Tonya Howard's math class Wednesday. Students learn that there's not just one way to multiply. Next it was time for the daily ​“number of the day” activity. This required students to identify whether Wednesday’s number of the day, 742, was an even or odd number. Then, they had to quickly subtract and add ten to the number and subtract and add three to the number. Howard wrote the students’ answers on the board as they called them out during the 30-second activity. The students also identified how to write the number out in an expanded form of ​“700+40+2.”“We’re getting quicker,” one student called out to Howard, who agreed.Howard’s classroom walls sported colorful folders containing student work, several college banners, books, and anchor charts. While there were no phones in sight because Howard has a no-phone policy for her classroom, Troup Culture and Climate Specialist Da’Jhon Jett reported that Troup’s order for Yondr magnetic phone storage pouches is now scheduled to arrive at the start of November.The students turned to page 55 in their i‑Ready workbooks. “We’re going to read this how many times?” Howard asked. “Three,” several students responded in unison. As three different students read the problem, they underlined key information in the question: ​“A mall has a rectangular outdoor space that is 127 feet by 46 feet. There is a grassy portion with a width of 40 feet and a concrete sidewalk with a width of six feet. What is the area of the outdoor space in square feet?”Howard reminded the class that finding the area of a rectangle can be done through several multiplication strategies. “Try to do your best, that’s all I ask,” Howard said. As students worked individually in their workbooks for five minutes, Howard next tasked them with reviewing their work in their small table groups of four. “I don’t get this!” one student called out. “You’re quick to give up on me, huh? We don’t give up in here,” Howard responded, then headed to the student’s table to offer one-on-one help. Once time was up, Godslove volunteered to show her work in front of the class, on the classroom’s white board. She first drew a rectangular box divided into six smaller boxes. This was her preferred layout to multiply a three-digit number by a two-digit number. Godslove used the area model strategy to multiply. By breaking the 127-foot length into 100, 20, and 7 feet, and the 46 feet into 40 and 6 feet, Godslove was able to quickly multiply the numbers together to get a product of 5,842 feet.“Did anybody do anything different?” Howard asked. While others didn’t, Howard showed the students a different strategy called standard algorithm. Next the students reflected aloud and then explained by writing in their workbooks how they reached the product. The students concluded Wednesday’s class by getting on their chrome books for a daily fluency assignment through the i‑Ready program. They also worked on their ​“My Path” personalized lessons online, which is a daily math instruction that’s based on students’ current math levels. Before dismissing, the students made sure to tear out page 57 from their workbooks to take home for homework. Godslove declared Wednesday that math is her favorite subject, but that that was not always the case. When she was a second-grader living in Ghana, she struggled with math often, specifically multiplication. ​“I thought I wasn’t good at it and would never learn my times tables,” she said. While she admitted she still struggles at times with division, she said she’s proud that she has caught up since immigrating to New Haven and Troup at the start of third grade.“I like the way people calculate things. I want to be really fast one day,” she said. ​“Whenever I look at an equation, I just want to use my brain to figure it out.” Students wrap up on i-Ready for final 10 minutes. While Howard, a New Haven native, has been at Troup for the past three years, this year she moved from being a second-grade teacher to the fifth- and sixth-grade math and science teacher.She emphasized the importance of Wednesday’s lesson, which allowed students to use more than one strategy to get an answer. “When I was in school, we were told there’s just one way to do things,” she said. ​“But all kids learn differently.”While she prefers using standard algorithm for multiplication, she finds that each student’s strategy preference differs based on their personal needs. Howard perviously served as a school clerk, a business manager, and a substitute teacher for over a decade at New Haven Public Schools. She noted that her upbringing in New Haven often helps her better support her students and remind them that ​“people do come back” to New Haven and that New Haveners ​“do succeed.” Godslove, at work.