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Rebecca Patterson

Va. Community Colleges Dive Headfirst Into Remedial-Math Redesign - Students - The Chro... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...128430

math education teaching learning mathematics colleges Remedial-Math

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 05 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Mr. DuBois wanted the system to become smarter in how it invested in people, talent, and technology, as well as do a better job of taking advantage of its size and resources.
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 05 Aug 11
       
      Glenn DuBois, the chancellor
  • One study by the college system found that only 16.4 percent of students sent to developmental-math classes ever managed to pass a college-level math course.
  • Recent high-school graduates are among the most vulnerable. They become frustrated when they learn they can't immediately enroll in credit-bearing classes, and they sometimes leave college even before taking a single course.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Institutions are equally affected. A recent report by the Community College Research Center put the annual cost of remediation at $1.9-billion to $2.3-billion at community colleges and $500-million more at four-year colleges.
  • There is growing recognition that the traditional semester-long course sequence used by many community colleges doesn't work, says Michael Lawrence Collins, associate vice president for postsecondary state policy at Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit that studies education and work-force issues. It's inefficient to have students take up to a year and a half in remediation when many need just pieces of what they're being taught.
  • The Virginia system is betting on that promise. Its colleges will soon replace their semester-long developmental-math courses with nine units, which can be taken as one-credit classes or Web-based lessons with variable credit hours that allow students to complete more than one unit in a self-paced computer lab and classroom. The number of units that students are required to complete will depend on their placement-test scores and intended program of study. Students focused on the liberal arts will have to show competence in only five units, for example, mastering basic algebra concepts such as linear equations. Students who plan to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, math, or business administration must complete all nine units.
  • Although he has help from a tutor in the class, it's a lot to juggle, he says. Mr. Wyrick does like how the Web-based class allows him to peek at students' quizzes in real time and track their progress a lot faster than by sorting through homework and test papers himself. "It allows me to intervene even before they ask for help," he says.
  • There is one certainty. The Virginia Community College system is not the only one anticipating the outcome. Equally curious are researchers and other colleges searching for successful ideas. "There is a risk," Mr. Collins says, "but there is also power in being that bold."
  • The Virginia Community College system is poised to find out. Starting in 2012, it will adopt a new systemwide developmental-math curriculum that will allow students to focus only on those math concepts they haven't already mastered rather than taking a series of semester-long math courses.
  • Half of all incoming students in the system need developmental education—and three-fourths of those students fail to graduate or transfer within four years.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 05 Aug 11
     
    Great article on a Community College network taking a chance to revamp its remedial math program. Read on!
Rebecca Patterson

How to Break the Cycle of Remedial College Classes - Education - GOOD - 0 views

www.good.is/...le-of-remedial-college-classes

education teaching highered remediation

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 20 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • This month, more than half of community college freshmen and at least a third of university students started college already behind. They're in at least one remedial course that does not count toward a degree, thus beginning at least four months—and sometimes years—delayed in getting the degree they enrolled to earn.
  • Like many of their fellow freshmen nationally, a whopping 95 percent of high school graduates from West Hills who received As and Bs in their senior English courses did not "pass" the placement test. Yet when allowed to enroll in college-level courses instead of remedial classes, 86 percent successfully completed college-level English, lost no time in their progress, and stayed on course toward earning a degree.
  • Only 24 percent of students placed in the lowest level of English remedial courses in California ever get through.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 20 Sep 11
     
    Whoops...forgot to write that this is mostly reading stats, but they are remediation percentages.
Rebecca Patterson

There's one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don't - Quartz - 0 views

qz.com/...cel-at-math-and-those-who-dont

math education intelligence psychology algebra

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 28 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Rebecca Patterson on 28 Oct 13
     
    "... you may be helping to perpetuate a pernicious myth that is harming underprivileged children-the myth of inborn genetic math ability." For high school math, inborn talent is just much less important than hard work, preparation, and self-confidence. Convincing students that they could make themselves smarter by hard work led them to work harder and get higher grades. In response to the lackluster high school math performance, some influential voices in American education policy have suggested simply teaching less math-for example, Andrew Hacker has called for algebra to no longer be a requirement. The subtext, of course, is that large numbers of American kids are simply not born with the ability to solve for x. Too many Americans go through life terrified of equations and mathematical symbols. We think what many of them are afraid of is "proving" themselves to be genetically inferior by failing to instantly comprehend the equations (when, of course, in reality, even a math professor would have to read closely). So they recoil from anything that looks like math, protesting: "I'm not a math person." Math education, we believe, is just the most glaring area of a slow and worrying shift. We see our country moving away from a culture of hard work toward a culture of belief in genetic determinism. In the debate between "nature vs. nurture," a critical third element-personal perseverance and effort-seems to have been sidelined. We want to bring it back, and we think that math is the best place to start.
Rebecca Patterson

Apollo Group to Buy Maker of Math Courses - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...er-of-online-math-courses.html

math education courses

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the Apollo Group, which operates the profit-making University of Phoenix, said Tuesday that it would pay $75 million to buy Carnegie Learning, which offers computer-based math instruction.
  • Carnegie Learning is one of a number of small- to medium-size companies that offer instructional material for use on computers and tablets and data analysis for schools, a market that has piqued investors’ interest in the past year. It says its curricula is used by 600,000 students in grades 6 through 12, in 3,000 schools nationwide.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 04 Aug 11
     
    Interesting numbers here. A quick read just fyi.
Rebecca Patterson

Does not compute: court says only hard math is patentable - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...licated-math-is-patentable.ars

education patents math mathematics

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the court ruled that you can't patent mental processes—even if they are carried out by a computer program.
  • no-patenting-math rule doesn't apply if the math in question complicated enough that "as a practical matter, the use of a computer is required" to perform the calculations.
  • So you can't patent calculations that could be done with a pencil and paper. And such calculations remain unpatentable even if the steps are encoded in a machine-readable format. But this leads to an obvious question: why is software patentable at all? All software consists of sequences of calculations that could, in principle, be done with a pencil and paper.
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  • Theoretically, you could have performed the calculations with a pencil and paper, but no one actually did so. Yet the Supreme Court still held them to be unpatentable mental processes.
  • The Federal Circuit displays a similar confusion about a more recent case, this one involving an algorithm for digital image half-toning. The court upheld the patent despite the fact that mathematical formulas were "admittedly a significant part" of the patent's claims. In Tuesday's opinion, the court argued that the half-toning patent was different from the fraud-detection patent because the half-toning algorithm "required the manipulation of computer data structures (e.g. the pixels of a digital image and a two-dimensional array known as a mask)."
  • Of course, a "computer data structure" is just a way of organizing numbers and symbols. When I served as a teacher's assistant (TA) for computer science courses in grad school, I would regularly draw diagrams of data structures on the whiteboard and perform example calculations on them. Similarly, many branches of math involve manipulating "data structures" like ordered pairs and matrices—presumably the Federal Circuit doesn't think you can patent new results in linear algebra because "data structures" are involved.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 26 Aug 11
     
    Not quite math stats here, but interesting patent ruling trends. Worth a read, Cooper!!
Rebecca Patterson

Views: 5 Myths of Remedial Ed - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...myths_about_remedial_education

education learning teaching highered

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 18 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • And remedial education -- the ‘catch-up’ work now required for the nearly 40 percent of students who come to college lacking basic skills needed to succeed -- is a prime candidate for elimination on almost everybody’s list.
  • everyone admits that remedial education is not working, with just 25 percent of community college students who receive it going on to complete a college credential
  • colleges have not clearly articulated the skills that students must possess to be college-ready, students are blindsided when they are placed into remedial courses, and high schools don’t have a clear benchmark for preparing students for success.
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  • With so many adults returning to higher education, remedial education must be transformed to meet their needs. Institutions should provide a wide range of options for students based on their competency, recognizing that many don’t have time for semesterlong courses.
  • A study by the Board of Regents in Ohio -- one of the few states that actually have cost data for remedial education -- found that although 38 percent of incoming freshmen were taking remedial coursework. This translated to only 5 percent of actual full-time students, and around 3.6 percent of undergraduate instructional costs.
  • The lack of clear college-ready standards, poor assessment practices, the lack of customized learning options and the cost in time and money to students make it clear that postsecondary institutions are not committed to ensuring the success of millions of students who seek a college credential.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 18 Sep 11
     
    Remedial College Education Myths...good read!
Rebecca Patterson

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

STEM retention math education science

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Research confirmed in the 1990s that students learn more by grappling with open-ended problems, like creating a computer game or designing an alternative energy system, than listening to lectures. While the National Science Foundation went on to finance pilot courses that employed interactive projects, when the money dried up, so did most of the courses.
  • he also says it’s inevitable that students will be lost. Some new students do not have a good feel for how deeply technical engineering is. Other bright students may have breezed through high school without developing disciplined habits. By contrast, students in China and India focus relentlessly on math and science from an early age.
  • The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long given freshmen only “pass” or “no record” grades in the first half of the year while they get used to the workload.
Rebecca Patterson

Carnegie works on new approaches for teaching math in community colleges | Cision Wire - 0 views

www.cisionwire.com/...in-community-colleges,c9148268

Remedial-Math math teaching learning

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 06 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • “Developmental mathematics has become a burial ground for the aspirations of myriad students trying to improve their lives through education,” said Carnegie senior partner Uri Treisman. A MacArthur fellow, Treisman is also a professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin.
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 06 Aug 11
       
      Treisman founded the Dana Math Education Research Center at UT Austin.
  • By completely reimagining the way math is taught, Statway and Quantway align with Kresge’s goal of supporting innovation that improves higher education productivity. The programs also provide pathways to and through college for students who might otherwise be left behind.
  • In 2010, The Kresge Foundation added its support – a two-year, $2 million grant – to that of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Lumina Foundation.
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  • Charles Cook, vice chancellor for instruction at Houston Community College. “I think the Statway project really has it right, where we’re looking at mathematical reasoning and problem solving and how math can serve you as a tool to further understanding, further investigation and further knowledge.”
  • Carnegie’s $14 million Quantway/Statway initiative is developing two mathematics programs: one-year courses that build quantitative literacy (Quantway) and statistical proficiency (Statway). They’re infusing both with teaching strategies that build students’ confidence as math learners.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 06 Aug 11
     
    $14 Million is a lot of money to develop 3 programs.
Rebecca Patterson

In turnabout, teachers give students Apples, hope iPads boost test scores - Wednesday, ... - 0 views

www.lasvegassun.com/...ive-students-apples-hope-ipads

teaching learning education math school algebra mathematics tools

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The $49 Fuse application allows users to learn at their own pace, Blumenfeld said. If students miss a class, they can tap into about 400 video tutorials led by textbook author Edward Burger, a math professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. “Videos allow for anywhere, anytime instruction,” Blumenfeld said. “For students who might have missed class or didn’t understand the lesson, you can push a button and have it explained again and again. You have a teacher available anytime, anywhere.”
  • Test scores in Riverside, Calif., jumped 30 percentage points, from 60 percent to 90 percent proficiency in math, he said. A smaller iPad program in some of Chicago’s elementary schools also resulted in improvement, Ebert said.
  • Indeed, Algebra 1 is one of the most-failed courses in the School District, Ebert said. All Nevada 10th graders are tested on the freshman-level math subject before they can graduate. Only half of the students in Clark County passed the math section of the High School Proficiency Exam on their first try last year. A quarter of students won’t pass the math section by their senior year and, as a result, will fail to graduate. This year, the district has identified about 9,000 seniors who haven’t passed the proficiency exam. They are at risk of dropping out, Ebert said.
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  • At the time, the technology we used (in math class) was a graphing calculator,” he said. “Today, these kids have the privilege to learn math in a new, innovative way
  • Only the Fuse algebra application and a few key tools are loaded onto the devices. At school, students are blocked from inappropriate sites via firewalls. The App Store, where iPad users can purchase games and other applications, is locked on the device, but school officials are looking at opening the online store in the future. Freshman Catherine Rodriguez, 14, flashed a big smile as she received her new iPad. Math isn’t her strongest subject; she hopes the new technology will help her, she said. Passing math is a big concern for Rodriguez’s mother, who took three years to pass pre-algebra, she said.
  • Rebecca Patterson on 17 Sep 11
     
    Interesting place to funnel school district money. There should be some good research coming out on this application in the next few years.
Rebecca Patterson

Community-College Officials Swap Notes on Common Worries and Challenges - Finance - The... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...128225

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 15 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • some institutions in her state were looking at more-customized remedial programs that home in on the needs of specific students, rather than running them through a battery of courses that they might not need.
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 15 Jul 11
       
      Need I say more....DR, DR, DR !!!
Rebecca Patterson

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

shared by Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the grades in the introductory math and science classes were among the lowest on campus. The chemistry department gave the lowest grades over all, averaging 2.78 out of 4, followed by mathematics at 2.90.
    • Rebecca Patterson
      Rebecca Patterson on 04 Nov 11
       
      Wake Forest University
  • MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering. But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon. So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.”
  • Mr. Moniz’s experience illustrates how some of the best-prepared students find engineering education too narrow and lacking the passion of other fields. They also see easier ways to make money.
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