Renew the Profession!

I am at the ‘summer institute’ for Statway and Quantway, though the event is now called the ‘national forum’ for the pathways.  Hosted by the Carnegie Foundation, the meeting is being attended by over 100 faculty from across the country … some have been teaching a Statway or Quantway course this past year, some are new faculty from those colleges, and some are faculty from ‘new colleges’ who are looking to join the work.

The most satisfying aspect of the national forum is the dedication of these faculty to renew the profession.  Instead of looking for the answer, these faculty are building their understanding of the learning process for their students; they are listening to experts with theory and knowledge that applies to the issues; and they are collaborating on solutions that will help their students.

This dedication to renew the profession is part of the change process we are all facing in developmental mathematics.  Although some of us are currently dealing with a temporary ‘fix’ such as modules or mastery learning, the profession has a need to understand the learning and student needs so that we can provide courses with a purpose and a value to students. 

The Carnegie work involves phrases such as productive persistence, language & literacy, and advancing teaching.  The specifics of this work are only ‘in the network’ (the networked improvement communities).  Over the next few years, I believe that all of us are going to develop our understanding of the concepts and theories … and the efficacy of specific strategies for specific students in specific sfituations.

I hope that you will join me, and all those already working in these areas.  The time is now to renew the profession of teaching and learning in developmental mathematics.

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Our Success — What does it look like?

Perhaps you have been involved with a process which includes classic design principles.  One of the basic design principles basically says “Imagine what success looks like … what it feels like … what it smells like.”  Ideally, this process is done by a group in a relaxed environment; no particular outcome is expected (besides a description).  After this description of what success is (based on perceptual characteristics), the process is designed to lead up to that outcome.

For us in developmental mathematics, what would our description be?  How would we describe success based on what our senses could directly perceive?  Would we even be able to describe success without the use of tests or assessments?

My concern is that we have described our work so much by learning outcomes and by tests (placement tests in particular) that we have very little thoughtful design in our work.  I worry that ‘success’ in developmental mathematics is mostly measured by correct responses to a predictable set of questions.

If developmental mathematics is about ‘getting ready’ for success, then our success imagination should reflect this concept.  Getting ready is not a description that can be used for design — we need to make ‘is ready’ concrete.  Descriptions like “articulate in quantitative issues”, “flexible with basic symbolic procedures”, and “responds positively to novel problem situations” are a start.  What descriptions would you add?

In the emerging models for developmental mathematics (New Life, Pathways, Mathways), some thought has been given to answering this basic question of what success would look like.  However, design is not a universal process; we can not just copy what some smart people have done.  Designing for success is a local process … what does success look like for your students?

I suggest to you that sustainable change in developmental mathematics will only be possible if we apply a deliberate design that considers a larger picture than categories and sets of learning outcomes.  The emerging models provide a necessary component, but not a sufficient one.

I invite you to initiate a ‘design for success’ process at your college.

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Emporium and Faculty

Many colleges have implemented the Emporium model (or a related redesign), and others are getting ready to do so.  This post is not about whether those colleges should have done this method, nor about the validity of the methodology itself.  This post is about the faculty who find themselves in this situation — either working in the redesign themselves or being part of a department where the model is used.

Faculty concerns about these models relate to workload, college priorities, and professionalism.  Since a deliberate goal of these redesigns is often reduction in costs, faculty workload often shifts; instead of faculty having a class with 25 to 35 students, we find ourselves providing individual assistance (often in a computer lab) … sometimes for additional hours compared to the class. We may or may not be providing instructor-led learning opportunities (most often not), and we often work alongside tutors.  We usually have different professional responsibilities in these redesign models, and may have less opportunity to apply our judgment on assessments.

On those workload issues, I would remind faculty that these changes are in a larger context.  One of those larger factors is a trend to look at faculty in different ways within higher education; sometimes, this is a ‘faculty are the problem’ approach (a continuation of that them in K-12 education) … other times, people are listening to the ‘faculty of the future’ conversations will people envision vastly different responsibilities for faculty.  Those factors are parts of the forces that have led institutions and systems to adapt these particular redesigns; the question will be — are these models of redesign a viable structure for a new role of faculty?  In practice, fundamental changes like this are not a continuous function; an initial solution (Emporium or other redesign) does not provide sufficient benefits, so the solution is modified or replaced by an alternative model.  Due to other forces on developmental mathematics, I think it is very likely that the initial redesigns like Emporium will be replaced by a different model after a trial period (in most situations).

The college priorities that lead to this type of redesign place the highest value on efficiency and savings; for faculty, this produces some reasonable concerns.  How far ‘up the curriculum’ will these methods be used?  This set of values is also part of a larger context, one which will become even more evident in the next few years: ‘making college affordable’ in the political jargon.  We need to recognize that there is some validity to the view that higher education has become too expensive — less so in community colleges, but still true there.  Given that the median income is stagnant or slightly declining, any increase in cost for higher education is relatively ‘out of syn’; our colleges will have increased difficulty in adding revenue.  In some states, there is a path prescribed which would enable increased revenue — performance based funding, where increases are assigned based upon achieving more benchmarks (such as ‘completing’ developmental education).  These larger factors will be a problem for us, which means that we need to see them as an opportunity — how can we envision developmental mathematics so that we provide mathematically sound courses in a faculty-based system while reducing costs?

The faculty concerns about professionalism take different forms.  Faculty have told me that they are concerned for their job security when their college implements an Emporium (or similar model) and the faculty member is definite in their judgment that these are not appropriate models.  Faculty have told me that the move to a cost-saving redesign raises questions about being respected as professionals.   Faculty have also wondered whether the Emporium or related models reflect standards of the profession.    The fact that faculty in these models find themselves primarily providing individual help can create some cognitive dissonance about what ‘professional’ means for math faculty in developmental mathematics.

These concerns about professionalism have validity.  The larger context here deals with the history of our profession, both community college mathematics education in general and developmental mathematics in particular.  In general, we have not anchored community college mathematics education in our professional association (AMATYC).   AMATYC works hard through the efforts of incredibly dedicated colleagues; however, too few of us are active members … and few colleges change their mathematics curriculum based on AMATYC standards.  One factor here is that AMATYC is young, being about 40 years old — the process is slow; perhaps we will ‘get there’ in the next few years.

I need to address the professionalism for developmental mathematics in particular.  Because of the history of the field, we often see our courses as ‘improved high school courses’ and frequently hire current or former high school teachers to work (either full time or adjunct).  This is not a criticism of the individual teachers involved … however, this creates weaknesses in our profession, because we have not had our unique ‘voice’ for what developmental mathematics should be.  Our only ‘model’ has been “like high school”.  Essentially, we lack a professional ‘voice’.  Within the emerging models (New Life, Carnege Pathways, Dana Center Mathways), a common theme is the building up of the profession by emphasizing unique features and goals.  These emerging models provide a “this is not high school” message, and provide a framework for the profession; in these models, math faculty provide benefits and strive for goals with students that can not be reduced to doing lots of homework.

If you are one of the faculty either happy with doing an Emporium (or similar) redesign OR not-so-happy with being on such a project, I encourage you to do your best for the sake of our students.  Since there are larger forces involved, I believe that these redesigns will tend to naturally migrate to one of the emerging models over time.  If this change does not happen, we can hope that this is because the particular implementation is well designed to meet student needs.

Your best activity for the long term is involvement with your professional association — AMATYC for those of us in community college mathematics.

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Treisman & Rotman Webinar – June 6 (AMATYC)

Uri Treisman and I have been involved with efforts to systematically reform developmental mathematics, such as New Life, Carnegie Pathways, and the Dana Center New Mathways.  Uri has been very supportive of our AMATYC work, including the New Life project.

On June 6 (4pm Eastern), we will be doing a joint Webinar on Issues in Implementing Reform in Developmental and Gateway Mathematics as part of the AMATYC webinar series.  The goals of this webinar are to present some general concepts to guide our work in reform, and to share some practical means to implement those concepts.

Here is the way the AMATYC webinars work — AMATYC members can register for a webinar (at http://www.amatyc.org/publications/webinars/index.html).  Registration usually begins about two weeks before the event (so you won’t see this one listed in April!).  AMATYC members who register will receive an email with directions (the day before the webinar). 

One thing to point out — people can watch the webinar as a group!  One person needs to be an AMATYC member and register; you can include non-members in the viewing process.  (The directions you receive will even tell you how to make the group process work better.)

I hope you can join us for this webinar.

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