If your students need help improving their math scores, it's time to take a step back from your hasty curriculum and dedicate more time to math. If you typically spend one week studying one type of math function, slow things down so that you spend a week and a half or two weeks on the same lesson -- thereby ensuring that students learn the material before moving on to the next advanced lesson. Increased time dedication not only includes spending more time talking about math, but it also has to do with checking students' math homework in class, answering their questions and giving them time to do in-class work assignments for practice.
An effective way to help students raise their math scores is to host activities or play games in the classroom. Activities and games stimulate students so that they are engaged in the material and are more likely to retain the information they learn by participating in the activity or game. Examples of activities and games include math team competitions or days where students act as the teachers.
Put students to the test and challenge them to focus on remembering what they learn in math by hosting mock quizzes. Mock quizzes do not count against students, however they aim to give students practice with test-taking and accessing the information stored in their brains. For some students, it is not a matter of not knowing the information so much as it is a matter of feeling nervous upon taking tests. Mock quizzes allow students to build up a tolerance to the pressure so that they can meet the challenges with better scores.
You might be able to raise math scores in the classroom by showing students how the math functions apply to real life. For instance, practical application exercises can include relating math functions to money management and banking concepts. Or, select a topic that interests the students in the class, such as sports or nutrition, and build a math curriculum that demonstrates how math applies to those subjects. Students may be more intrigued, or the math concepts may begin to make more sense when they can relate the information to something more applicable to their lives.