Teaching College Algebra More Effectively

One of the department's large service responsibilities has been the teaching of College Algebra, Math 1513. This course is required by many majors and has been a stumbling block for many students. Over the years the department has tried teaching the class in small and large sections, provided studying incentives and offered tutoring through the MLRC, but stiil many students do not pass the course. This fall a team consisting of Cynthia Francisco, a lecturer, Gail Gates, the Associate Vice-President for Undergraduate Education, Dana Brunson, Senior Systems Engineer representing IT, and I submitted a proposal to the National Center for Academic Transformation for redesigning the delivery of College Algebra. The proposal was accepted and the team met with the redesign experts from NCAT in late April to finalize plans for a pilot study in fall 2008.

The delivery model will be similar to ones that have been successful at LSU and the University of Idaho. Those designs were inspired by the Math Emporium at Virginia Tech. In these models students spend little or no time in a lecture and use computer software to learn through short video presentations, online homework with instant feedback, and online quizzes and testing. Our proposed model features one class meeting per week with an instructor and three hours per week of work using the software at the MLRC computer lab. Undergraduate tutors, TA's and lecturers will be present in the lab to provide assistance as the students work. The idea is to make the students more actively engaged in the learning and use the computer software to individualize the pace and style of presentation and to provide rapid feedback. When the students have difficulties, they can still get individualized assistance from the instructional staff.

During this semester Doug Aichele and Cynthia Francisco have each been teaching a section of College Algebra using the software that we plan to use in the redesigned course but still meeting the classes three days a week. They have been monitoring carefully their students work and learning how the students are responding to the software.

In the fall some students will be in traditionally taught sections of College Algebra and others will be in computer based classes with the new format. We will be collecting data to compare the learning achievements of students in the two types of sections. Both the instructors and the students in the new sections will need to adapt to this non-traditional delivery system. The experience of other institutions has been that it takes at least three semesters to fine tune such a different approach to instruction, but the lower withdrawal rates and increased success rates have made the change worthwhile.