Category: Math curriculum in general

Placement and Telemarketing for Developmental Mathematics

Once upon a time, my college had optional placement test results … students could enroll for courses above the level indicated by the placement test. Since the test results were voluntary, students could choose to comply or to rebel relative to our recommendations. One of the factors in this choice was the peer reviews they heard about the developmental course in question; part of our rationale to help them ‘make the right choice’ was the evidence we had about how effective that course was in preparing students for the next course.

Like most institutions, those days are gone; because of ‘best practice reports’ (and our own judgment), we now have mandatory placement test results. Like many other colleges, students at my college MUST comply — regardless of peer reviews of our courses, and regardless of our own evidence.

A recent report from our friends at the Community College Research Center raises even broader questions about the validity of the common placement tests; the report is called “Assessing Developmental Assessment in Community Colleges” … see . This report shares the results of several research studies on placement tests and placement of students, and should be required reading for policy makers at the local, state, and national levels. A basic point is made: For a placement (assessment) system to be valid, the resulting developmental course work should be effective at leveling the playing field. This remains as an open question, overall, for developmental mathematics.

So, I’ve been thinking about this report and what we have been doing. And, I wonder … in commercial enterprises, companies depend upon peer reviews for new business; when that is not enough, they consider things like telemarketing. How successful would we be if we had to use telemarketing to bring students in to our developmental math classes? Could we draw anywhere near the same level of business if we needed to depend on students making a deliberate choice to take our classes as an investment on doing better in the future?

I worry that the vast majority of our students believe that their developmental math work is important only because they have to get a passing grade in order to move on to the next level. I worry even more that … because we have such a strong demand for our courses … REGARDLESS of quality or benefits … we do not put our best content into our courses, nor our best teachers into developmental math classrooms, that our books are less than inspiring, and that we miss opportunities to engage in basic improvement processes.

Maybe it would be good for us to face a possible ‘non-automatic’ nature of students who could opt out of our courses; perhaps we have become so accustomed to guaranteed demand that we do not see opportunities.

Join Dev Math Revival on Facebook:

categories Math curriculum in general, politics of developmental mathematics | | datetime May 9, 2011 7:14 pm | comments Comments (2)

STEM or What? What Trajectory?

In community colleges, ‘developmental mathematics’ courses are the highest enrollment math courses.  These courses are based on a ‘calculus’ track, in most cases; I explore this issue in one of the Instant Presentations.  Most of our students are not required to take calculus, or even pre-calculus, for their program.  What is their trajectory?

Many of my students are on a trajectory to meet a general education requirement in mathematics.  In some cases, this is the requirement of my college (a course after beginning algebra); in other cases, it is the requirement of a transfer institution … for those who transfer.  What is the trajectory of general education in mathematics?

The “SIGMAA-QL” (quantitative literacy special interest group of the MAA) conducted a study in 2009 in an attempt to determine any commonality in our general education requirements.  The results are available in the report http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.158.6128&rep=rep1&type=pdf , which I have been studying this week.

This “QL” survey was intended for both 2-year and 4-year institutions, and they tried.  They sent the survey to every MAA-liaison, and this included over 400 at community colleges.  The return?  About 45 out of those CC.  Given the small number, the results could not be summarized.   The response rate was about 25% for 4-year colleges (275 returned, I believe), so the report deals with the 4-year situation.

Within the 4-year environment, the survey sound a surprising amount of ‘diversity’ in the general education requirement across an institution.  However, most of these courses fall into two categories — part of the pre-calculus sequence, or statistics.  What is trajectory we are designing here?  Are we saying that all students should attempt but fail to complete a sequence towards calculus?  Are we saying that ‘getting ready for calculus’ is equivalent to general education? Are we saying that statistics is the only exception for students — no other branch of mathematics has validity for all students?

Given the direct connection between developmental mathematics and these ‘general education’ requirements, we need to do some critical thinking relative to the trajectories we create.  What does it mean to be ‘quantitatively literate’, and how does this differ from ‘quantitative reasoning’?  Dealing with these questions will form a strong foundation for building trajectories which we impose on our students … this imposition needs to be based on a sound argument for their benefit.  (We need an argument stronger than “math is good for you”.)

Join Dev Math Revival on Facebook:

categories Math curriculum in general | | datetime April 28, 2011 5:14 pm | comments Comments (0)

WordPress Themes