Welcome to the second in the series about how we took our department co-req. Make sure to read part 1, including the disclaimer, HERE
Background about Blinn:
It will help in the following posts for you to know some
things about Blinn College where I work, as many of these features have a
strong influence on how or why we do things.
Blinn College, a two year school, is headquartered in Brenham,
Texas. (Home to Bluebell Ice Cream if
that helps) That campus has about
1800-2000 students currently, and is a residence campus.
The campus I work at is the Bryan campus, with about 15,000 students,
and another 3000 at the RELLIS campus about 8 miles from Bryan. The difference in size between Brenham and my
campus is because Bryan is next door to College Station, home to Texas A&M
University, and RELLIS is a, well, partnership with Texas A&M. (It is a lot more involved than that, but
that works for our discussion) With the
positive relationship we have with Texas A&M, and the good transfer status
of our programs, we have many students who come to us trying to then transfer
into Texas A&M at some point.
Unlike many two year schools, our students, especially on
the Bryan and RELLIS campuses, are almost all academic students looking to
transfer to a four year school. Roughly 85% of those are looking to transfer
(or are also currently enrolled) at Texas A&M. For example, we normally teach about 20
sections of 32 students of Calculus I in the fall. Thus we already were teaching many credit
level classes even before the change.
Also, because of the four year schools where most of our students want
to transfer, we actually have FOUR pathways:
1.
A liberal arts mathematics (1332)
2.
A Finite Mathematics and Applied Calculus
sequence (1324 and 1325)
3.
A Statistics pathway (1342 – mainly for nursing
majors, but there are others)
4.
A STEM pathway (starting with 1414 or STEM
College Algebra)
It should also be noted that both the Bryan and RELLIS
campuses are bursting at the seams. Over
half of the mathematics faculty at those two campuses are doubled up in
offices. (And the offices are right on the line as far as OSHA is concerned
regarding size of shared offices….) We
are also fighting for classroom space, with almost all of our classrooms being
full during the entire 8-5 day. (Admin
for a while didn’t really want night classes for some reason. They seem to be heading back toward offering
night classes…) So we had little space
to even think about additional computer labs for a group homework setting or
other such ideas. Even if we had the
room, the additional cost involved with equipping the room would have been a
sticking point with the upper administration.
All of the above contributed to the way we chose to
implement things at Blinn. Also, because
of the internal structure at Blinn College and the way the state laws read, we
had to basically count the entire Blinn College system as one campus for
reporting reasons. Thus, anything we set
up would have to be consistent at all the campuses, including any small
satellite campuses we have where we might only teach one section of the class
each semester.
As always, if you have questions, comments, etc, let me
know.
Twitter: @robebymathdude
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