Time to Replace Them All (dev math courses)

My college is undertaking a major change, motivated in some ways by applying the federal financial rules about remediation with integrity:  courses need to be at least at the high school level in order to be included in a student’s financial aid load.  I’m also getting ready for the National Math Summit (next month, Anaheim).

When we began the New Life Project back in 2009, the core group working on the curriculum stated that there was no need for a course prior to Math Literacy … that Math Literacy can replace beginning algebra for ALL students (STEM and non-STEM) … and that Algebraic Literacy can replace intermediate algebra.  Since that time, more has been understood about the college algebra/pre-calculus curriculum and problems.

So, here is an updated curricular map that puts this together:

The small box at the start of this image represents a non-course preparation for Math Literacy.  My college is exploring the other option — including the needed prerequisites within the Math Literacy course.  We have not made any decisions, though we are going to do something along these lines.  At this point, we will not offer any arithmetic nor pre-algebra course.

One of the changes in the map is the courses after Algebraic Literacy.  The original map made reference to reform college algebra (for general education).  However, the recent discussions have focused more on revising pre-calculus to be a modern course … so the map uses that terminology, and maintains the college algebra ‘box’ for the non-calculus paths.

Several colleges are known to be ahead of my college on this path — some have totally replaced their dev math sequence with the Math Lit and Algebraic Lit courses.  More have replaced beginning algebra with Math Lit, and would consider replacing intermediate algebra with Algebraic Literacy if the materials were readily available.

I want to remind all of us that one of the goals of our Project was to replace the old courses for all students.  STEM-bound students deserve the good stuff in Math Literacy.

In my presentation at the National Math Summit, I will be sharing data on how (poorly) the beginning algebra course serves students.  The data on this question is glaring, and should encourage more of us to walk down this path of ‘replacement’.  The data on intermediate algebra is also consistent with the goal of replacing the old courses (though the data is not as ‘bad’).

The up-to-date information on the National Math Summit is available at http://www.nade2016.net/math-summit.html  As of the first of this week, registration is still open (the event has a definite maximum).

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