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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Modules or Clumps in Developmental Math?

A lot of people are talking about modules in developmental mathematics as part of an effort to ‘fix’ our programs.  Of course, the word ‘modules’ has implications that sometimes are not meant … so I was inspired when I saw somebody refer to them as ‘clumps or modules’. 

The word ‘module’ carries connotations, and also has a denotation.   You might be surprised to learn that ‘module’ does not have a denotation (definition) relative to the practice of clustering learning outcomes into small pieces (‘clumps’), nor with process of assigning a subset of ‘clumps’ to a given student.  Most dictionaries will not give an educational meaning to ‘module’.  What we are doing here is describing by metaphor — “this is like modules in electronics where sub-systems are replaced as a unit”. 

Which leads in to the connotations.  When we think about ‘modules’, we usually have positive images — easy, efficient, better.  “Modules” has a scientific sound, as if describing by metaphor automatically assigns a scientific basis.  I suspect many people think that ‘modules’ means that we are meeting students’ needs, and that the program is individualized.  Some people believe that ‘modules’ mean that students spend more time actively doing ‘mathematics’.

Using modules does not mean anything more than using ‘clumps’ would mean.  Of course, a particular implementation of clumps (or modules) might mean a great deal of good stuff.  Too often, using ‘modules’ means that we focus on the delivery system to the exclusion of critical analysis of the content (beyond creating clumps).

In practice, there usually is one difference between using ‘clumps’ and using ‘modules’.  With ‘modules’, there is not (normally) any summative assessment at the end of a ‘course’.  This means that there is no need, from the student’s point of view, to integrate knowledge and understand how parts fit together.  “Connections”, in a modular math environment, is limited to those that can be developed within a single module.  “Clumps” might share this property, but ‘modules’ almost always do.

As mathematicians, we have shared values — reasoning, application, relationships, representations, and even creativity.  Whether you call them ‘modules’ or ‘clumps’, do our values come through?  This really is important; imagine a freshman writing class where students learned about components of writing in isolation, and never had the opportunity to develop a position or argument.  Like writing, the purpose of mathematics is centered on communication.  Let’s build courses where our values are accessible to students.

 
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The Math Bridge

Imagine, if you will, two small towns near a bridge over a large river. One town (Prima Factoid), priding itself on details and being thorough, shared a belief that ‘being ready’ meant having all of the basic skills taught in their local high school.  They spoke of alignment, of mastery, of students’ taking responsibility for their learning.  The neighboring town (Stepped Up), being populated by realists, shared a belief that every body was ready enough … or they were not eligible.  They spoke of evidence, reports, and things not working.

These towns share the bridge that is developmental education, a major part of this structure being called developmental mathematics.  Prima Factoid constructed levels and additional ramps to the bridge; Stepped Up put everybody in vehicles all going the same speed (fast) with some extra handbooks and ‘life line’ calls.  The two towns had a friendly football rivalry, but this hid a deep mistrust between citizens of the two towns.

So here is my motivation:  Complete College America released a report Remediation: Higher Education’s Bridge to Nowhere    (see http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pdf).  I am disappointed in this report … within their goal of fostering a completion agenda, they label remediation as a failure beyond recovery; they suggest that we place all students in college-level courses (as in Stepped Up). 

However, many of us actually live in Prima Factus, and we need to recognize how mismatched this approach is to the needs of college students.  By living via a basic skills mentality, with an honest desire to help students, we present unnecessary barriers and extra courses in front of students without much evidence of this being effective for the majority of students.

For the developmental education bridge to actually work, we need to be much more deliberate and thoughtful in its design.  To think that all students are ready for college courses with support ignores the deep educational needs of a large portion of our students; to think that all students need to pass courses covering basic skills from arithmetic and polynomial algebra is to provide a weak foundation for college work.

We need balance; we need a clear vision … a vision that recognizes that there are many students who just need some extra support to be successful in college courses without taking developmental courses, while there are many other students with academic needs that should be met in a few courses (like 1 or 2 math courses). 

Reports that totally condemn what we are doing do not help us move forward, just as reports that totally defend the current basic-skill oriented models.  We have fundamental work to do so we truly help our students … ALL of our students.

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Redesign: The “Basic Skills” Phrase of Today

Let me  say the most important thing first:  Redesign of developmental mathematics is not what is needed; we need to implement new models of meeting the mathematical needs of college students.   Okay, so that is the primary point … here is some background.

You are wondering about this redesign stuff … what does it mean?  How does redesign help students in developmental mathematics courses?  The word itself (“redesign”) has multiple meanings, essentially captured in this definition:

Redesign:  to revise in appearance, function, or content   (from Merriam-Webster dictionary)

A redesign might be referring to just the appearance, like having a 3-color cover for a textbook instead of 2 colors.  Most faculty would be looking for a redesign which looked at function or content (or both), with little concern for appearance.

A redesign is a revision to an existing course or curriculum which results in an altered functioning or content.  I suggest to you that we do not need redesign of developmental math courses; we need something more basic than revision.  Developmental mathematics has not (previously) had a deliberate model for identifying and addressing college student needs for pre-collegiate mathematics.  No, we have not had a model to revise … we have had a history, in fact a long legacy, consisting of loosely connected skills in polynomial arithmetic in service of a mythical calculus preparation.

Beginning a redesign effort assumes (or is based on evidence that) our current system is essentially sound, that it only takes some amount of revision to be good enough.  Think of it with this parable:

In the 1970’s, car companies realized that they would need to produce vehicles with improved fuel efficiency.  Their initial responses were based on the redesign — they took an existing model car, made the body smaller and made the engine as small as possible; with a few cosmetic changes, cars like the Ford Pinto were born.  Although these ‘redesigned’ cars sold reasonably well, the car companies were essentially basing their work on the same designs.  Meanwhile, other car companies (such as Toyota) created cars based on a totally different design — designs in which the better fuel efficiency was just part of a larger vision.  Eventually, the American car companies realized that a new vision of fuel efficient cars was needed … resulting in vehicles that offer a package of benefits including fuel efficiency.

If we redesign our existing developmental mathematics courses, we are putting a GPS unit on a 1973 Ford Pinto.  Now, I’ve got nothing against Ford; it’s a good company, and they have come out with some really nice vehicles.  However, the point is that redesign of developmental mathematics is reinforcing the current vision of the curriculum; this vision is not based on a coherent analysis of student needs and curriculum process … we have historical artifacts which have been given the look & feel of a curriculum.

A redesign of the current courses may provide some temporary relief, just as the ‘small’ cars of the 1970s.  However, we must recognize this basic fact:

We do not have a coherent model of developmental mathematics.

We work hard, we help quite a few students, they work hard … it’s impressive what we have accomplished without a model for our work.  Can you imagine what we are capable of, if we have a model for our work?  Guided and inspired by a vision for a model which meets real students’ needs with solid mathematics, our courses can become places where students realize their dreams and ambitions … where mathematics provides an on-ramp for college success.

So … do NOT redesign.  Get inspired by a new model; take a look at New Life … at Pathways … at Mathways.

 
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