New Life model – Compared to Statway & Quantway

I’m at the Statway winter institute (in Palo Alto, California), where we are getting some initial results from the Statway implementations going on this year — very encouraging, and the colleges involved have done a great job.  Makes me wish I was at a Statway institution.

I’ve also been having discussions in recent months about how the New Life model compares to the ‘Pathways’ (Statway & Quantway).   This has been addressed other places, but one aspect might help us understand a basic distinction.

First, let’s review — there are similar goals, and much common mathematics, between the New Life model and the Pathways.  The Carnegie Foundation has been gracious and inclusive in their work, which has enabled us to work on both approaches.  In both approaches, we seek to provide more appropriate mathematics for students and help them complete developmental mathematics more quickly.

So, a basic concern in Statway and Quantway is ‘recruitment’ — how do we identify the students who can take advantage of the Pathway?  The Pathways are designed to serve groups … Statway focuses on students whose ‘final’ course is an introductory statistics course, while Quantway is for students whose ‘final’ course is a quantitative reasoning-type course (with some variation in Quantway).  With the Pathways, a college has the existing sequence and then the Pathway alternative so that finding the students is a central concern.  This is especially the case with Statway, since it is a 2-semester sequence designed to be completed by each student.

In the New Life model, the vision is more general.  The first course, “MLCS” (Mathematical Literacy for College Students), is designed to connect with a variety of non-STEM college courses —  including intro statistics, quantitative reasoning, and others.  The second course, “Transitions” is used to connect to STEM-like college courses — such as college algebra, pre-calculus, and others.  The approach here provides flexibility to colleges and students.  Students identify their needed sequence of courses (hopefully 2 courses at most!) by looking at course prerequisites.

A difference between New Life and Statway is that Statway is a ‘2 semester set’ while New Life is ‘sequences for each student’ that follow patterns familiar to community college students — to take course X, the prerequisite is course A (which the student might or might not need).  Quantway is similar to the New Life MLCS, though the expectation is that Quantway students will proceed to take the quantitative reasoning course the next semester. 

In other words, colleges can build their own ‘stat path’ by implementing MLCS as a prerequisite to an intro statistics course.  Colleges can implement MLCS and Transitions as a replacement for the old courses.  Colleges can implement Transitions as a better bridge to STEM-like course; some might choose to do this for some STEM courses but not for ‘less STEM-like’ courses.  Transitions might be a better preparation for basic science courses than ‘intermediate algebra’.

New Life is all about flexibility at the local level to provide better mathematics preparation for their students.
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Why Change Developmental Mathematics?

Why should we make basic changes to developmental mathematics in communuty colleges?

The latest ‘Instant Presentation’ has been posted, and it is on this topic.  Take a look!   https://www.devmathrevival.net/?page_id=116

Is Algebra Bad?

Today was the first meeting of my favorite class — Math119 is called “Math – Applications for Living”, which follows beginning algebra in our curriculum as one of the options for an associate degree.  Math119 is a mathematical reasoning or literacy class.

At the start of the class, I asked the group “Why did you take this class … it is not required specifically of any student?” 

The first answer:  “Because it is not algebra!!”  This got nods of agreement, and several students supported the comment.  These students — some accomplished, some challenged to pass — were taking a course that is essentially all word problems to avoid taking an algebra class.  Of course, I was honest and told them that I would be sneaking in some algebra in this class (which got some people laughing).

Why does ‘algebra’ have a bad reputation among some students?  Some readers will be sure that this is because we teach algebra without making it relevent for students, that the situation would be much improved by basing an algebra course on contexts that the student can identify with.  My conversations with students leaves me with the conclusion that this is quite untrue, for the majority of the general population; those students only interested in a quick path to an occupation based on training are the main exception.

No, I think the problem lies much deeper than ‘context’.  Our algebra courses cover topics in a disconnected manner, with unnecessary (and sometimes outlandish) complications in the problems … because we focus so much attention on procedures and correct answers.  It’s also true that we avoid applications of algebra that might involve ‘weird’ numbers or (gasp!) problem solving skills.  Most of our algebra courses, especially at the developmental level, are not respectful of human intelligence (including those at my institution).

I hope to share other experiences from this Math119 class; may you enjoy the stories!

 
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Pathways Webinar — January 24, 2012

Our friends at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching are offering a webinar on January 24, 2012 on the “Pathways”.  See the information at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/spotlight/webinar-updates-carnegies-work-in-developmental-math

This webinar has 5 topics listed: an update on student and faculty experiences, explanation of how faculty are contributing to the materials, the role of “productive persistence”, the use of analytics to plan, and how to get involved with this work in the future.

If you have been curious about the Pathways — Statway™ or Quantway™ — this is a great opportunity, and provides an early look at how to become involved in the work.

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