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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Online Homework … Research

We’ve been talking, as a profession, about online homework systems.  To some, some of these systems are the ‘best thing since sliced bread’.  On the other hand, some basic ideas from learning theories suggest that the benefits may not be uniformly positive.

A general source, summarizing various research, is the MDRC report  Unlocking the Gate: What We Know About Improving Developmental Education  http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/full.pdf  .  On page ES-7, the report states:

                     Little research has been conducted on these strategies despite their popularity, and the research that exists shows mixed results.

In general, we can trust that a report from the MDRC is valid and reliable.  I thought I would look for some additional research, in case you are interested.

http://editlib.org/p/32318

Laurie Lenz
“This study compares student outcomes in multiple sections of a required mathematics course. The sections differed only in the homework delivery method: WBH, PPH, or a combination of the two. Among other results, it was found that students were more likely to attempt and to receive higher homework grades with WBH than with PPH. However, the study found no significant difference between the exam grades of students in the WBH sections and the students in the PPH sections.”
[WBH means web based homework; PPH means paper & pencil homework]

http://www.editlib.org/p/33222

David Shane Brewer, Kurt Becker

“This research compared the effectiveness, in terms of mathematical achievement, of online homework to textbook homework over an entire semester for 145 students enrolled in multiple sections of college algebra at a large community college. A quasi-experimental, posttest design was used to analyze the effect on mathematical achievement, as measured by a final exam. The control group completed their homework using the textbook and the treatment group completed similar homework using an online homework system developed by the textbook publisher. All class sections followed a common syllabus, schedule, and homework list and completed a common, departmental final exam. The results of the research found that while the treatment group generally scored higher on the final exam, no significant difference existed between the mathematical achievement of the control and treatment groups. When students were divided based on incoming math skill level, analysis showed that low-skilled students who used online homework exhibited significantly higher mathematical achievement than low-skilled students who used textbook homework. Exploratory analysis also showed that more students with low incoming skill levels and more repeating students received a passing grade when using online homework than did their higher-skilled, first-time counterparts, although the differences were not significant.”

http://iisit.org/Vol6/IISITv6p285-298Buzzetto556.pdf

Nicole Buzzetto-More and Ojiabo Ukoha

“The results of this study were mixed and marked by high levels of neutrality; however, the findings did indicate that most students felt that the system was easy to use, a valuable learning tool, successful at having helped them to learn course concepts, and an aide that helped them to perform better on their assignments. At the same time, most student responded that they were not satisfied the system. The analysis of the student performance data noted a significant decrease in student withdrawal rates and a marked increase in pass rates for the course under consideration.”

 As you may have discovered, this research is not easy to find.  If you search online for research for online homework systems, most of what you see will be marketing materials from publishers of such systems with an occasional ad-hoc summary of what happened in a class or course — which is not research.  Research strives to answer a question in a way that can be duplicated and validated, and the marketing & ad-hoc reports do not qualify; they might raise valid points, but do not show what the results are relative to online homework systems.

Here is a list of online articles for this research:

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no4/baugher_1211.htm                              

 http://editlib.org/p/32318                                                       

 http://coe.ksu.edu/jecdol/Vol_6/pdf/theeffect.pdf

http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v4n1/articles/PDFs/Article_DoornJanssenOBrien.pdf                     

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no4/hodge_1209.htm

http://iisit.org/Vol6/IISITv6p285-298Buzzetto556.pdf                     

http://www.editlib.org/p/33222                                        

http://www.ifrnd.org/JEVR/1(3)%20June%202011/Enhancing%20the%20Study_of%20Business%20Statistics.pdf

http://www.math.umt.edu/tmme/vol3no2/TMMEvol3no2_SaudiArabia_pp176_183.pdf

 
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Arithmetic before algebra?

In our college ‘developmental’ mathematics curriculum, we place arithmetic before algebra … and tell students that they need to know their arithmetic before they have a reasonable chance of passing an algebra course. In many ways, we have this backwards!

Think about this: Arithmetic, as normally taught, involves ideas relating to multiple sets of numbers (whole, fraction, decimal, integers) and procedures for multiple operations (binary operations in particular, and some unary operations), with concepts from geometry and dozens of cultural contexts for ‘word problems’.  Within these topics, few direct connections exist; students are faced with a problem learning (remembering, as they would call it) the diverse material.

Algebra brings a structure and connections between topics that makes the learning easier.  Of the arithmetic topics, only a limited number are directly prerequisites to some algebraic learning.  Fractions have little to do with the concepts of solving linear equations or combining like terms; we might force those issues to come up with some contrived problems, but the algebra itself is quite basic. 

Another point of view:  A 8 hour sequence of class time in an arithmetic course is likely to involve a wider variety of problems than an 8 hour sequence in a beginning algebra course.  Furthermore, the algebra course will provide a clearer logic for the work as well as connecting material to prior learning compared to the arithmetic course.

I’d also point out that arithmetic is not nearly as practical as it once was.  Current occupations have a greater need for quantitative sense and reasoning, and we could dump much of an arithmetic course to make room for these topics … and help students in the process (with no harm done to any student).

Take a step back, and really think about your developmental math curriculum.  Do you have the important stuff in the right order to help your students?

 
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