Algebraic Literacy: A Course to Help Students

At the AMATYC conference in Jacksonville (November 8 to 11), we explored the New Life model was a topic of much discussion and some sessions.  In these conversations, there is growing excitement about our Algebraic Literacy course as an alternative to ‘intermediate algebra’ … an alternative which also meets more students’ needs.

Conceptually, Algebraic Literacy was designed based on looking at the quantitative needs of students in several college courses … needs that exceed our MLCS course.  For example, the Algebraic Literacy learning outcomes deal with the concepts and capabilities needed to succeed in pre-calculus.  The outcomes also reflect much of what was learned by the MAA in its work with our client disciplines (biology, chemistry, and social sciences in particular); the needs identified are consistent with several fundamental concepts of mathematics … rate of change, symbolic and numeric representations, and basic types of relationships (linear, exponential, power, rational, etc).

Okay, so here is a document with the learning outcomes for Algebraic Literacy: Algebraic Literacy Course Goals & Outcomes Oct2012

One thing to keep in mind … Algebraic Literacy is not an intermediate algebra course like we have been used to.  You will see some familiar topics (equations and inequalities); you will also see some less familiar topics for this level (exponential and power equations).  And — you will see a deliberate coordination of symbolic and numeric methods, with some outcomes addressed only in numeric form (for solutions).

To give some idea of the nature of this course, I wrote a sample lesson for one of the function topics (rate of change).  Take a look: Algebraic Literacy Sample Lesson Rate of Change Exponential.

In designing this course to meet the needs of students, we discovered that the result is a course which is more attractive to mathematics faculty.  Rather than dealing primarily with procedures, the Algebraic Literacy course builds on key concepts (mostly from algebra) with an emphasis on both the symbolism and the application.  I hope that you will take a look at the Algebraic Literacy course.

 Join Dev Math Revival on Facebook:

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.