Implementing Better Math Courses, Part II: Helping All Students

The traditional developmental math curriculum generally fails the mission to help students succeed in college mathematics; this failure is due to both exponential attrition (too many courses) and to an obsolete curriculum.  In this post, I will describe a specific implementation plan that addresses these problems for ALL students.  #NewLifeMath

I call this implementation “medium” because it goes beyond the low results of pathways models.  The next level of implementation involves eliminating all courses prior to the beginning algebra level … and replacing beginning algebra with Math Literacy for College Students.

Here is an image of this implementation:

This implementation means that the majority of students can have a maximum of one pre-college math course (developmental level), since most students do not need to take a pre-calculus course.  The Math Lit course was designed to serve the needs of all students — STEM and not-STEM; even though many of the initial uses of Math Lit were in pathways implementations, the course is much more powerful than that limited usage.

Doing this medium implementation results in significant benefits to students.  In order to make this work, the institution needs to address interface issues — both prior to Math Lit and after Math Lit.

Math Lit has a limited set of prerequisite knowledge that enables more students to succeed, compared to a beginning algebra course.  However, this set is not trivial.  Institutions doing a medium implementation will need to address remediation ‘prior’ to Math Lit for 20% to 40% of the population in the course.  One methodology to meet this need is to offer boot-camps prior to the semester, or during the first week.  The other method (which my institution is starting this fall) is to embed the remediation within the Math Lit course; in our case, we are creating a second version of Math Lit for 6 credits (with remediation) to run parallel to our 4-credit Math Lit course.

After Math Lit in this model, there is an interface with intermediate algebra.  At some institutions, this will work just fine … because the intermediate algebra course includes sufficient review of basic algebra.  In other institutions, some adjustments in intermediate algebra are needed.  My own institution is playing this safe for now … after Math Lit, students can take a ‘fast track’ algebra course that covers both beginning and intermediate algebra.  I don’t expect our structure to be long-standing, for a variety of reasons (most importantly, that we are likely to reach for the next level of implementation where intermediate algebra is replaced by algebraic literacy).

I suspect a common response to this implementation model is something like “this will not provide enough algebra skills for STEM”.  I would point out two factors that might help deal with this apparent problem:

1. Taking beginning algebra prior to intermediate algebra is currently associated with lower pass rates (controlling for ACT Math score).  [See https://www.devmathrevival.net/?p=2412]
2. The basic issue for STEM students is not skills — it is reasoning.  [See AMATYC Beyond Crossroads http://beyondcrossroads.matyc.org/   and the MAA CRAFTY work http://www.maa.org/programs/faculty-and-departments/curriculum-department-guidelines-recommendations/crafty ]

This medium implementation model is conceptually similar to the Dana Center New Mathways Project, where they follow up their adaptation of Math Lit (“FMR”) with their STEM path courses.  Like them, we have confidence based on professional work over a period of decades that this implementation model will succeed.

In a pathways model, only those students who are going to take statistics or quantitative reasoning get the benefits of a modern math course.  In the medium implementation, this set of benefits is provided to ALL students.  In addition, the medium implementation eliminates the penalties of having more than 2 developmental math courses in the curriculum, by dropping all courses prior to Math Lit.  The result is that the majority of students will have 1 (or zero) developmental math course, with improved preparation as well.

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