Math Literacy: Student Motivation

We’ve completed two weeks in our “Math Lab” format of the Math Literacy course.  [We’ve been teaching Math Lit for several years, but this is our first try at this format … the Math Lab format focuses on student learning and options, and much less on ‘teachers presenting’.]

One thing I have noticed is that students are working harder than they did in our beginning algebra course.  Math Literacy replaced beginning algebra (effective this year) so the students are similar in terms of background and goals.  Both courses emphasize the online homework system from the company, and the length of homework per section is very similar, especially in terms of number of problems.  The complexity of the homework is higher in Math Lit, as students need to do some reasoning (as well as calculating) right away.

I can measure the increased effort by both time on task and by sections completed.  By both measures, students are more ‘motivated’ in Math Literacy than the traditional course it replaced.

This increase came in spite of the fact that students are working primarily as individuals (they did not form small groups or pairs, in general).  The progress is almost totally based on what each student is doing.  We often use small groups as a way to build community and motivation; perhaps the motivation link is not as strong.

Although I have not interviewed students about this situation, I think there are a couple of basic reasons why they find the Math Literacy course more ‘innately motivating’:

• They see the problems as more interesting, since the majority of problems are word problems of some kind — fewer problems are just procedural.  Perhaps they view them as having a ‘reason to solve’.
• The content is different in a fundamental way from their K-12 math experience — the course is clearly not their Algebra I book with a different cover.  There may be an element of “appeal to adults to learn something” as opposed to fixing their math background.

Over the semester, I will get to know these students enough to understand the situation a bit better.  Right now, I’m happy just to be able to observe the effort they are investing in learning mathematics.

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Math Literacy … Focused on Students

After one week of our new “Math Lab” sections of Math Literacy (‘without a teacher at the center’), I am pretty darned pleased with the early results.

My institution replaced beginning algebra with Math Literacy this year, so we have dozens of sections for Math Lit.  Four of them are “Math Lab” classes, where students spend class time interacting with the textbook and material under instructor supervision but without any presentations.  I am teaching two of these four ‘Lab’ classes, so that is the basis for my comments.

The course work is highly structured.  The book work has been organized within each section/lesson so that students work a  couple of pages at a time (checking work against the solutions posted with each assignment); we have a video with guidance attached to each assignment.  A section/lesson has 3 or 4 of these assignments, along with a typical set of online practice problems at ‘the end’.

On the first day, I did a course orientation so students could see how this worked.  I strongly encouraged students to work together on that book work.  On the one hand, I am disappointed by the ‘together’ part — only a couple of students are working together in each class.

However, the students are getting in to the course work and the book work.  A high proportion are getting sections done (1 or 2 per day).  In the old algebra course, the progress was much slower … the change is evidence that the content & approach of Math Literacy has a higher innate motivation for our students.  Not only are students working and making progress, they are asking questions already (not all students, but more than the algebra course).  The material so far is basic numeracy (uses of percents, proportional reasoning, basic data summaries, etc) … the course transitions into algebra over the next weeks (though some algebra is present throughout).

The course design includes a Quiz (taking online) after the first 3 lessons.  That quiz is on the schedule for yesterday for one class; in that class, ten of the 14 students got to the quiz on time (with the lowest score being a 88%).  [The other class schedule is half a week behind.]  We’ve done quizzes in our Lab classes before, but I have never had even half the class take a quiz on time.

The early results are promising.  My conjecture is that some of the best learning occurs when we get out of the way, and configure the class so that students spend a lot of time interacting with mathematics.

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Math Literacy without a teacher at the center

We are trying something different this fall.  As we’ve eliminated our basic algebra class in favor of Math Lit, we are adding a student-directed format. I’m doing two of these classes as part of my teaching load this semester, and I hope to post commentary each week.

What’s different?  Well, the big difference is that students in this “Math Lab” (student directed) format work on the material without me standing in front of them.  The online homework system has videos in support of the workbook, which focuses on context and concepts; students will be following these detailed assignments for each section, and they are encouraged to work with other students.  [Of course, the students also face the usual assignment of problems to be done after this studying.]  The instructor is available to help when needed.  The goal is to get every student actively engaged with the mathematics (no sleeping in class 🙂 ).

I am testing a conjecture that students can learn significant mathematics (concepts and reasoning)  mostly ‘on their own’, even at this level.  Sometimes, I think we place too high a value on what we say or do.  In my view, all learning is essentially “on my own”.  Help is often needed, but is not always best prior to the learner recognizing that there is a need.  It’s not that one way is better for all students at all times; it’s that a different approach enables more students to succeed — and that this sometimes leads to students understanding the learning process a little better.

We’ll see how it goes!

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Texts for “After Math Literacy”

A recent post here did a brief review of the 3 available Math Literacy textbooks (https://www.devmathrevival.net/?p=2804).

That post quickly led to the natural question:  What about books for courses AFTER math literacy?  (Thanks, Eric!)

Ideally, we would have 3 books for “Algebraic Literacy” … a course designed to replace intermediate algebra.  However, much of the Math Literacy work is still stuck in a pathways approach, where Math Literacy is only used for “non-STEM” students.  I don’t think this pathways emphasis can survive that long (see https://www.devmathrevival.net/?p=2779) In this period, however, most uses of math literacy courses is as an alternative to beginning algebra for those who “don’t need algebra” (as if that was possible or desirable).

To review, here is the New Life vision of basic mathematics courses at colleges & universities:

So far, the reform work in our college curriculum has been limited, with the most systemic work being done at the Math Literacy level.  Many people are holding off on Algebraic Literacy until there is a textbook, and publishers are interested in creating those texts.  We need to achieve a higher level of interest before those “AL” books will be developed and published.  Authors want to write them, publishers are willing to support them … IF the market interest is there.  Lesson:

Always tell publishers that you want to see textbooks for Algebraic Literacy, and that Algebraic Literacy is not an intermediate algebra with a new ‘cover’.

There are colleges who are implementing Math Literacy for all students, replacing beginning algebra in their curriculum (mine, for example).  Most often, this means the use of a typical intermediate algebra book for the course following math literacy … a bit like getting to use an iPhone 7 one semester and then being handed a rotary phone the next semester.  If only there were better options!!  [Some folks use the “Math in Action” materials, which are not Algebraic Literacy at all … they just provide great context and applications.]

Both publishers with good Math Literacy texts (McGraw Hill, Pearson) have considered algebraic literacy books; they may even have them ‘under contract’ (I would not necessarily know about that).  Keep telling them that you really want an algebraic literacy book, and they will develop them.

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