Should ANY Adult take an Algebra Class?

In Michigan, we are working through a process to update the math courses that can be used to meet general education requirements.  We are using pathways concepts, and face the issue of intermediate algebra … and college algebra.  This has led me to ponder the question — is there a good reason for any adult to take an algebra class?

College courses, overall, are either for general education or for specialization.  Developmental math courses are a subset of the general education courses — they are pre-college level, and not specialized.  I know a few places have integrated developmental math into occupational courses; however, the majority of us do our developmental in a general context.

There is no need for an ‘algebra’ course in general education, whether developmental or not.  At the pre-college level, we focus on the mathematics that students need in college level courses.  Certainly, this preparation needs to include algebraic ideas, reasoning, and processes.  However, this basic algebra is a tool used in combination with other mathematics — whether geometry, statistics, networking, or other.  A developmental mathematics course might have more algebra than other domains, but will never serve students well if the only content is basic algebra.  Mathematical reasoning is not isolated bits of knowledge.

At the college level, a general education course is meant to provide breadth to a student’s understanding of the world.  An intense focus on algebra in a course for this purpose is misleading at best; more commonly, such an intense focus on algebra for general education creates barriers to completion with a course widely viewed as being disconnected from the real world.  A general education math course needs to be diverse, and show relevance.

The other broad category is ‘specialization’, usually related to a particular program or major.  The ‘algebra’ we are using in this discussion is a subset of polynomial algebra, which is nobody’s specialization; none of us teach such algebra courses because we were inspired to earn an advanced degree in the content.  This specialization, practically speaking, is justified by the study of calculus.  Even in a traditional calculus course, algebraic understanding is just one of the basic factors in success.  Visualization, flexibility, and breadth of knowledge are important as well.  We often provide separate courses in ‘college algebra’ and ‘trigonometry’ (with little geometry in either one), and then wonder at why students can not integrate their knowledge and apply it to new situations.

With all of the intense focus on developmental mathematics, we tend to not think about the curriculum at the next level … and whether it serves students well.  These courses in college algebra, trigonometry, and pre-calculus have completion rates that ‘compete’ (in a negative sense) with developmental courses; only the small ‘n values’ involved keeps this problem out of the attention of policy makers and grant-making foundations (is there a difference between those two?).  We have much work to do.

I do not believe any student should be faced with an algebra course.  Mathematics is much more interesting than that, and more diverse.  Let’s put a variety of good stuff (good mathematics) in every course a student takes.  We might even inspire significant numbers of students to take more mathematics.

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5 Comments

• 

  By sarah, February 20, 2014 @ 9:24 am

  Well said and so true!!!!

• 

  By schremmer, February 20, 2014 @ 5:21 pm

  Re your “Mathematics is much more interesting than that”

  Well, then, how about putting mathematics back into the empty nonsense that goes today under the name of algebra—elementary, basic, intermediate, college,… pick your choice.

  Regards
  –schremmer

• 

  By Jack Rotman, February 21, 2014 @ 8:28 am

  Of course, I would love to put some mathematics into our courses.

• 

  By schremmer, February 21, 2014 @ 10:36 am

  Well, these days, what with all the technology, we don’t have to deal with “publishers”. So, why not just do it? And there exists ready-made, completely free software to create one’s ancillaries.

  If nothing else, the stuff at FreeMathTexts.org provides an “existence theorem”.

  Regards
  –schremmer

• 

  By schremmer, February 21, 2014 @ 2:22 pm

  I just learned three things:
  (1) That it is very bad manner to give a reference that is not linked
  (2) How to do it. (Answer: use HTML!)
  (3) How easy it is to behave “bad student” like: I didn’t google for it and automatically assumed that there was something wrong with the site. (I did apologize to Rotman.)

  And here is the above reference linked: FreeMathTexts.org

  Regards
  –schremmer

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