This is the forth post in the series about our department moving to a co-req model. Make sure to read part 1, including the disclaimer, HERE and the other posts in the series, as it sets an important background.
Specific stuff to Blinn’s method
Recall from last post that we had to overhaul our system to
fit everything that we do, and we didn’t really have that long to do it
in. In addition, whatever we did had to
fit our registration and student tracking systems. So we decided to put a paired class with each
credit level class. That paired class
would be the two hour support class for the students who previously placed into
a developmental level mathematics class.
It started with a new flag in the registration system, the
“math flag”. This was a flag that went
into place if a student would normally be in developmental mathematics, but the
mathematics department had control over when the flag went away. This was important to us because we know from
our own studies that a developmental student might do okay in finite
mathematics (1324) they would struggle in our fairly heavy algebra based
applied calculus (1325). The math flag
meant those students would be in a paired class for BOTH 1324 and 1325, to
really help them succeed in college level mathematics.
Blinn had already split our college algebra into a STEM and
non-STEM versions, with the STEM version being a four hour course that fed into
Trigonometry and then Calculus (MATH 1414).
However, none of the schools that our students wanted to transfer to
would take a three hour college algebra as a transfer class for a degree
plan. (It would count as a general
elective). This meant that for all
intents and purposes, we would not teach any “general college algebra”
classes. Instead, the student would go
into the credit level course that fit their pathway, and then also be
registered in the paired class for that course.
No way to use college algebra as the support class for everything, in
other words.
By paired course we mean they had the same section number,
like P37, and the registration system was set so that if you registered for one
of the classes, you automatically registered for the other paired class. It also meant that a 1324-P37 was a class of
only students who would have been in developmental mathematics before the change. For privacy concerns and instructional
concerns we thought that this would be the best way to implement our new
system.
This also means that if a student was dropped from a class
(we have an attendance policy at Blinn, or for other reasons) then the student
would also be dropped from their paired class.
No skipping the support class to try and pass the credit class for the
students. This was necessary because the
way the law was worded, as long as a student passed their credit level class,
their grade in the support class did not matter. This meant we had to structure the grades for
the support class into a special form of In Progress (IP) so that it would not
bear upon their college GPA, and also meet the requirements about not having to
pass the class to enroll in the credit level class.
One other big thing we had to do with all of our paired
classes was set an order of topics covered.
In the past, we had let each professor cover topics in the order they saw
fit. However, since for the most part the
person covering the support class would be different than the professor
covering the credit level class, and it was likely a person covering a support
class would have several in one semester, it was important that we all have the
same order of topics so that we could all stay sane. However, given all the different modalities
of the courses (2 and 3 day a week, MW or TR, etc) the support classes could
not be automated, but instead had to be dynamic in how they covered things.
It should be noted here that our liberal arts (1332), finite
mathematics (1324) and statistics (1342) classes are all fairly heavy
calculator usage. However, our applied
calculus (1325) is a much more algebra based course, mainly because of the
demands of the four year schools our students are wanting to transfer to. Our STEM sequence of classes are ALL no
calculator allowed on exams, again because of the demands of the four year
schools our students are looking to transfer to. This means that one of the big topics in the
support classes is how to use a calculator to do what we want. That has turned out to be a very useful thing
in practice.
. As always, if you have questions, comments, etc, let me
know.
Twitter: @robebymathdude
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