When Change becomes Progress

This semester, we have more than 150 sections of Mathematical Literacy offered at colleges across the country … and these are outside of the grant-related work (such as Quantway™).  In other words, the New Life Mathematical Literacy course is now the most implemented reform math course in the United States.

Getting to this point is the result of the incredible effort of dozens of math faculty, many of whom have been members of the New Life wiki at http://dm-live.wikispaces.com/.  Our work has not involved large grants from foundations; rather, collaboration and local initiative have allowed us to create significant change.

However, change is not the same as progress.  Progress involves sustained efforts which achieve explicit goals.  We have achieved more than other efforts … but we “are not there yet”.

Where are we headed?  How will we know when we have arrived?  These are not questions for which we create singular responses and data-based conclusions; these are questions for a profession to use as standards for our work.

In the world of process and product design, one set of strategies involves having people seeing themselves in the situation that they are trying to create.  For example, we might ask 100 math faculty to imagine that the mathematics curriculum works like it is supposed to.  What does this look like?  What does it sound like?  What does it smell like?

For our work, here are some answers I would give to those questions about what we are trying to achieve:

• Students text each other about the latest exciting math problem.
• Students pass every math class unless something unexpected comes up.
• Over 10% of students major in a STEM field and over 10% of degrees are awarded in STEM fields.
• Students learn diverse mathematics, with understanding, in both pre-college and college math courses.
• Fewer students are in college-prep math classes than are in college level math classes.
• Half of the students who start in college-prep math classes change their goals to be more STEM-like.
• Math faculty are the happiest faculty on campus.

Part of our difficulty has been that we have not had a goal in mind — beyond having higher pass rates.  Higher pass rates is not a design standard; it’s a production standard (and a poor one, at that).

Progress would exist if we would judge that we are substantially closer to achieving our goals.  If we don’t articulate our goals (like the 7 statements above), we can never have progress … because we are not directing our efforts towards anything.  Change is cheap; progress is where the power is.

I started off this post thinking a next step, like getting the Algebraic Literacy course on the radar — and I still think that is very important.  Or, thinking about salvaging the college algebra and pre-calculus curriculum, which is very important.  I hope that you will be involved with one or both of those reform efforts.  Overall, however, I am concluding that we need to have more conversations about our goals.  What does progress look like?  How do we know when we are there, as opposed to where we are now?

We have created significant change.  Progress?  We’re not there yet.

A Golden Age for Developmental Mathematics

As we start another academic year, sometimes we get discouraged because it seems like we are trying to solve the same problems, and cope with the same challenges, for decades.  I think we have good reason to view this year in particular in a different way.

I believe that this period will be seen as the golden age of developmental mathematics.

Think about this historical view:  Sixty years ago, ‘remedial’ mathematics was a minor issue for most colleges.  Community colleges were generally not large, and tended to be either occupational schools or ‘junior’ colleges.  Fifty years ago, community college enrolments were growing very quickly; part of the result was an obvious ‘need’ for remedial math.  In keeping with the CC mission, remedial math was re-cast as developmental math (in some cases) to be more student-friendly.  However, the content and methods of developmental math were still remedial — the high school algebra I and algebra II courses formed the core.

Forty years ago, a ‘back to basics’ movement pushed our curriculum towards computation and procedures.  Turns out, this was a minor shift; the main visible evidence was the emergence of the worktext in math classes.  Thirty years ago, ‘hand-held calculators’ were the big thing; we fought and argued about whether these devices should be allowed in our math classes … and whether they would impact the curriculum

Twenty years ago, graphing calculators were the issue; some interesting (and short-lived, in some cases) text materials were developed to take advantage of this technology for learning.  Large parts of our profession remained untouched, however.  This same time period saw the early stages of digital products — now called homework systems.  Ten years ago, the digital products reached a level of complexity that their use became much more common; days of workshops at conferences helped faculty learn how to change controls and how to collect student results.

Today, we face opportunities for improvement that were not possible in these prior periods.  Instead of deciding which technology to use, we are debating what mathematics is appropriate.  Instead of assuming that algebra headed towards calculus is the path for all students, we are establishing statpaths and quantitative reasoning paths … while still looking for ways to enable more students to be “STEM bound”.  Instead of making tweaks to one of our 3 or 4 courses, we are looking at ways to get the job done in 1 or 2 courses.  In some cases, we are looking for practical ways to do the job without any course in dev math at all.

This is our golden age.  Our work will shape the profession for decades, and the math faculty of 30 years in the future will see this decade as the turning point — a shift towards deliberate designs for actual needs.  In 30 years, we may not have anything called ‘developmental’ mathematics; perhaps the pre-college work will be called ‘literacy’ or simply pre-college.  In 30 years, faculty will understand how different this work is (compared to any high school curriculum).  In 30 years, all math faculty can see their courses as involving sound mathematics which will help students reason and learn.

This is our golden age.  Yes, we are faced with pressures.  Yes, we are challenged by misinformed policies and laws (in some cases).  Yes, some efforts to ‘change us’ come from sources which do not value mathematics.  Yes, sometimes we see only threats and retrenchment when we should see doors opening to a better future.

This is our golden age.  We can have discussions now about what mathematics is appropriate for all students, about what mathematics is appropriate for science preparation, and what mathematics might inspire students to consider STEM paths.  We are not just looking for the best colors, nor just looking for how to explain a topic so one more student gets it; we are looking at which instructional methods produce a given type of outcome, and we are realizing that a complex set of teaching skills is needed.

Yes, this is our golden age!

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Do we Have 80-Year-Old Students?

I was at a meeting earlier this month (on my campus) about developmental education.  We had a broad conversation about ‘what works’ and what we would like to do.  The person leading the meeting has a background in writing — including developmental writing courses; I’ll call him George for convenience.

George told the story of one particular student he was having trouble with.  The student was polite and all that, but could not write a coherent paper.  After grading some papers with agony, including one responding to Angela Davis, the instructor (George) had a conversation with the student.  Based on that conversation, they decided to have the student write about a different topic — the student’s own experiences in a war (World War II, in this case).  The result, according to George, was a well-written essay (far longer than required).  The lesson George took from this was … let them write about something meaningful to them.

My response to this story was:

We should look for 80-year-old students in our classes, who happen to be stuck inside a 20-year-old body.

You see, my lesson from the story is a different.  Students are complex human beings (there is no other kind).  For ‘good students’, they can focus on academics and see what we expect of them.  For ‘struggling students’, they have difficulty keeping their history and current life challenges separate from what we ask of them in a classroom.  The student in the story was 80 years old at the time, and had much to deal with; of course, writing about something personally important is meaningful.  However, society in general … and occupations in particular … demand that we communicate about ideas that we do not necessarily care about.

The lesson, for me, is this: Students need to learn how to separate and focus.  Many of our students have had challenges in their lives; sometimes, this is just a math challenge.  Other times, they have faced significant life issues and trauma.  Just being able to talk about these will help a student focus in class.  Sometimes, they do not realize that the challenges they have faced will be a benefit in a math class.  To some extent, the affective factors can prevent cognitive work; just articulating the issues behind the affective can let the brain focus on the cognitive.

It’s tempting to say that “the lesson is to show students that we ‘care’ about them as people”.  Many of us do care about our students.  However, my observations do not support this conclusion in general.  I think the lesson is more subtle than ‘we care’ or ‘make it relevant’.   Maybe the lesson is more like “give them credit for making it this far.”

Our students have faced a lot of life, whether they are 20 or 80.  For some, they have overcome more challenges in 20 years than I will have faced in 80.  We seem to be more gracious to the 80-year-old than the 20-year-old.  I think we should look for all of the 80-year-olds in our classes, especially those who are stuck in a 20-year-old body.

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Building a Learning Attitude — Hope

Perhaps you have a person like this in your classes.  A person who believes that struggle means that the other person has not done their job.  A person who gets discouraged because problems come up that are not her fault.  A person who believes that 20 years of completion means that they have shown sufficient achievement.

In fact, I am sure that most of us have a member of our math faculty like this (or several).

Yes, the description is for a faculty member.  She has asked me what I do when students will not contribute in class, and what to do with behavior problems; she has shared frustrations with students who don’t do their part.  In some ways, the New Life project exists for faculty like this, as a way to give hope and engage all faculty.

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” (Nelson Mandela)

We want progress.  Progress is not measured by the 50 exceptional programs; progress is measured by what all of our students experience.  We face a challenge much less complex than President Mandela did when apartheid was ended in South Africa; to make progress, he knew that all people must be included in the work.  To exclude a group just meant to exchange places with them, and prevent progress.

“We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us” (Walt Kelly, “Pogo”)

The only way to make progress is together.  We need the discouraged and cynical faculty, just as they need us. They need our hope for a better future, and we need them so progress is real, and has a chance of lasting.  To exclude people from our work is to reduce our probability of success.  Inclusion means dialogue, even when uncomfortable.  We share values about mathematics, though we may have different perspectives based on our experiences.

Do not give up on other faculty.  Keep up a dialogue.

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