Chapter 42. The Math Emporium Barbara L. Robinson and Anne H. Moore Virginia Tech's Math Emporium is an open, 60,000-square-foot laboratory with 550 Macintosh computers serving more than 8,000 math students each semester. The facility occupies renovated, leased space in an off-campus shopping mall. (See Figure 1.)
EDUCAUSE Review Online
Developed in response to the crisis in remedial and general-education math courses, this innovative model pairs an existing parent course with a one-unit supplemental hybrid course to provide a variety of interventions and practices to support students at California State University, Northridge. The model divides instruction among faculty, teaching assistants, and tutors, who coordinate content to create a "flow of learning" that actively moves students from classroom work, to group work, to homework, to exams. First fully implemented in 2008, the model's results have been dramatic - essentially reversing the downward trend in student success and vastly improving students' average scores and the distribution of the grades.
Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
EDUCAUSE Review Online 6 Challenges and 6 New Learning Models: Flipped Courses, Open Learning Initiative (OLI), Science Classes, Math Emporiums and Other NCAT Redesigns, Blended Courses, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
In redesigning introductory mathematics courses, NCAT's partner institutions have found that the Emporium Model has consistently produced spectacular gains in student learning and impressive reductions in instructional costs. Two different versions of the Emporium Model have been successful.
Despite the widespread popularity of online social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, many students exhibit a reluctance to include faculty in their social networks. Given these personal preferences, how do social networks and education intersect? A pilot using Twitter to communicate important information about lab hours and support services yielded minimal student response.
This infographic is interesting but scroll to the end and view the dramatic changes in student outcomes. This is a high school example but it seems that similar results could also be seen in remedial or gen ed type coursework in higher ed.
Comments have some interesting resources, too.
It can be challenging to get "remedial" learners in higher ed to dive into doing work before class.
Using resources like Khan Academy also mean your focus is on procedure, not understanding; if somebody needs to get through that math-course-you'll-never-use then it's a good too, but if real understanding is the goal then something more conceptually based (and something that's correct more consistently) would be in order.