This webpage provides a home for information about the UNL Math Department's work in redesigning the first year courses.
Materials from Presentations
Gateway Conference, Charlotte, NC, April 12, 2015
handout
MAA Session on Graduate Students Teach Too: Ideas and Best Practices, January 9, 2016
Slides
Department Newsletter, December, 2015
Task force tackles reforms in pre-calculus
Motivation
The need for reform can be seen on both the national level and the local level. On the national level college algebra has been a course with significantly high failure rates. Failure rates above 40% are not uncommon [1]. On the local level success rates in the five years preceding 2012 were 62%.
Fall Success Rates | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 07-11 Ave. | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
101 | 63% | 61% | 60% | 68% | 60% | 62.4% | 59% | 80% | 80% |
103 | 66% | 65% | 68% | 65% | 70% | 66.8% | 77% | 78% | |
Outline
Reform was instituted in 2012 and has continued to evolve. The current course model has worked effectively for many students. Several of our innovations are grounded in research.
- Online Homework
Hauk and Segalla conducted an extensive study of student perceptions of web-based homework using the WeBWorK online homework system [2]. We are currently using the WeBWorK homework system and working to improve the system to better promote student learning.
- Instructor Led Group Work
WeBWorK lacks in a key aspect of the triadic reciprocity proposed by Bandura (1986) and modified by mathematics educators [3]. WeBWorK lacks the environmental interaction with a subject expert to provide the cognitive apprenticeship. We utilize instructor led group work inside the classroom to increase the number of opportunities for students to participate in cognitive apprenticeships with their instructor.
- Pedagogy Training/Faculty Involvement
Research indicates that a primary factor in successful course reform is instructor buy-in [4]. We increase buy-in through two avenues. First, we have a graduate level pedagogy course required of all graduate teachers in their first semester teaching. Second, we have faculty directly involved in the course, exams, syllabi, and course decisions have faculty involvement.
- Learning Assistants
A growing body of knowledge supports the inclusion of learning assistants in undergraduate courses [5]. Each of our College Algebra courses has a learning assistant working side-by-side with the instructor of record to help facilitate student learning.
- [1] Herriott, S. R., & Dunbar, S. R. (2009). Who Takes College Algebra? Primus, 19(1), 74-87.
- [2] Hauk, S., & Segalla, A. (2005). Student perceptions of the web-based homework program WeBWorK in moderate enrollment college algebra classes. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 24(3), 229-253.
- [3] Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ. To see some of the modifications please refer to Cohen, D. K., Raudenbush, S., & Ball, D. L. (2002). Resources, instruction, and research. In F. Mosteller & R. Boruch (Eds.), Evidence matters: Randomized trials in education research, 80-119. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
- [4] Goertzen, R. M., Scherr, R. E., & Elby, A. (2009). Accounting for tutorial teaching assistants’ buy-in to reform instruction. Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education Research, 5(2), 020109.
- [5] The Learning Assistant Alliance, https://sites.google.com/a/colorado.edu/la-resources/research/products/papers