After our first full year of implementation and assessment, Parkland has decided to make some major revisions to its developmental math redesign. Yesterday we voted to make three major changes, effective Fall 2015 (pending Curriculum Committee approval). The third is the big one!

1. Get rid of our 8-week “half classes” and to return to 16-week courses.  Originally when we added the second track to our developmental math sequence, we also split all of our courses into half-courses.  Essentially this had no impact on the curriculum, simply turning what used to be a midterm grade into an actual grade on their transcript for the first half of the course.  The 8-week half-courses were a really good idea for several financial and pedagogical reasons. They allowed students to start over at midterm if they were not passing after the first half of the course, and to only have to repeat the second half of the course if they were successful in the first half but not the second.

Unfortunately, they just didn’t work out at our school. We were having trouble getting enough students in the off-cycle sections and had to cancel quite a few. When these sections did get enough students, they were a concentrated group of the weakest, least motivated students. This was a real challenge, because it helps so much to have some stronger students who can motivate and help their peers. In the regular, on-cycle sections, there was the concern that if not enough people got a C or higher in the first half, the second half might not have enough students to be offered. Yikes! So we have decided to take all of our half courses, both the Mathematical Literacy courses and our traditional algebra courses, and return them to 16-week formats.

2. Drop Mathematical Literacy from 6 credit hours to 5. We’ve found that students who place at the Intermediate Algebra level are choosing that instead of Math Literacy, even if they don’t need it, because it is less credit hours. If these students are not going on to College Algebra, this just doesn’t make sense for many reasons, and they are less likely to be successful. In addition, after offering the course for a year, we feel that we can do a good job of covering the material in less time.

3. Get rid of Beginning Algebra, have all students at that level go through Mathematical Literacy, and revise Intermediate Algebra. This brings us closer to the vision of the AMATYC New Life Project. Math Literacy can take students to their gen-ed math courses, and also serve as the prerequisite to a modified version of Intermediate Algebra. This new Intermediate Algebra course will begin with a fast review of some key Beginning Algebra topics that may not be covered in sufficient detail in Math Lit: one or two algebra topics, and a few by-hand procedures. Its exact content and format are going to be developed over the course of this year. So still two tracks, but they overlap. Our hope is that Math Literacy will offer ALL students a conceptual foundation that they were not getting in Beginning Algebra, and then our STEM-track students can pick up the symbolic manipulation that is specific to their needs when they take Intermediate Algebra.

In doing this, it feels like we are turning the philosophical basis of developmental math upside-down. In the past, the Beginning and Intermediate Algebra sequence was designed with the needs of STEM-bound students in mind, and then gen-ed bound students were required to take them. Now we are taking Math Literacy, a course specifically designed for students headed to gen-ed math, and having it also serve STEM-bound students. This turns developmental math upside-down, so to speak, and I am very interested to see how it plays out and whether our decision to rethink a century (or more!) of math instruction will serve the needs of students headed down the traditional algebra path.