Southeast revising math program for fall

As part of its ongoing effort to help students earn college degrees faster, Southeast Missouri State University will introduce a revised developmental math program in the fall.

Thirty-five percent of Southeast's first-time, full-time freshmen need remediation in math, while less than 5 percent require English remediation, Debbie Below, vice president for enrollment management and student success and dean of students, told the Southeast Missourian in a previous interview.

"We have taken the developmental math courses that students typically come in and need -- developmental algebra and intermediate algebra -- and have changed those from three-credit courses to a one-hour lab that will accompany our logical systems class that those students would need to take," math department chairwoman Tamela Randolph said.

Logical systems is a group of entry-level math classes for university students, Randolph said.

Below and several Southeast faculty members are involved in an initiative called Complete College America whose goal is to get 60 percent of Americans to obtain high-quality postsecondary degrees or credentials by 2025.

"In the process of listening to what's going on across the nation, and particularly in the state, students who take developmental mathematics classes are not typically graduating from college at the rate of students who do not," Randolph said. There are lots of statistics out there, she said, but one of the numbers heard from Complete College America is that for every developmental mathematics class a student has to take, "the probability of that student graduating is cut into half."

"We have not run data here, so we don't know exactly what it is here, but that's kind of staggering because we had three, and currently do have three, developmental mathematics classes, so to think about that, the probability of that student actually graduating is less than 20 percent, if those numbers hold here, which we don't know if they do or not," Randolph said.

Under the new format, Randolph said if students have low math ACT scores, they will enroll in a statistical reasoning class, for example, but they also will be placed in a one-hour lab to learn pre-algebra, and the instructor of the statistical reasoning class will be the same as for the lab.

"It's going to ... hopefully speed up their progress to graduation so their time spent with us will be less, which most of them will be happy about. ... It's like a shot in the arm when you need it best," Randolph said. "It's going to be real quick information right there. Currently, you're getting the information you need a year before time. ..."

Although developmental math classes will be eliminated for 60 to 70 percent of majors, they won't go away entirely. If a student is in a major where they need college algebra, calculus, or applied calculus in a hard science, they will still have to take one developmental math class before taking college algebra, Randolph said. "There's just no way to shove that much algebra in that lab along with teaching them college algebra; it just doesn't happen that way," she said.

The labs

A new 60-station math lab will be installed in Memorial Hall, along with a 10-person classroom where some "direct, one-on-one teaching" can be done. "We'll have an instructor, and some student assistants -- whether it's graduate or undergraduate -- so it's going to be pretty cool," Randolph said.

The class itself is going to be taught in the computer lab with software that goes with the textbook, which will also be electronic, she said. The software to be used is MyMathLab, which has checks and balances in it that help students solve math problems, Randolph said.

Randolph said a request also has been made for software to control the computer, so the students' screens will have the teacher's information on it.

As preparations to teach the new courses continues, Randolph said she sees herself doing a little bit of lecturing, then having the students do group work and solving problems on the computer, then return to lecturing.

"I see it being interactive with the computer being kind of their quick check; even with 20 [to] 30 students in the room, it's hard to check everyone's work, so the computer in this particular case can tell them if they got it right or didn't get it right."

Developmental math classes in the past were held in a computer lab, but it wasn't interactive because the teacher didn't lecture.

"We have five courses we're redesigning to fit this model. We're trying to figure out what the class will look like, as far as teachers and students. We're spending a lot of time now doing course development," Randolph said.

While less than 5 percent require English remediation, department chairwoman Carol Scates said in an email to the Southeast Missourian that her department also is redesigning its curriculum for fall 2014 with the goal of higher student retention.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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