Recreating course to save student grades

After failing Math 1010 two consecutive semesters, Christopher Gillis gave up on Weber State University’s developmental math program and chose to fulfill his quantitative literacy requirement by enrolling in Philosophy 2200. Beginning this spring, the developmental math department will implement a new teaching model to reduce the high number of students who, like Gillis, fail developmental math.
Every semester, 70 percent of incoming freshmen place into some level of developmental math. Approximately 2,900 students enrolled in developmental math for the fall 2009 semester. Currently, only 50 to 60 percent of students pass their developmental math course with the required C or better. WSU expects the new program, Technology Enhanced Redesign of Mathematics (TERM), to increase the number of passing students by up to 25 percent.
“I’m just extremely excited about the program,” said Dale Ostlie, the college of science dean. “We’ve been looking for a very long time for an approach that could be helpful for our students.”
Ostlie was introduced to the TERM model last spring at a National Center for Academic Transformation conference. Since then, employees of the developmental math program and other university entities have pieced together a model for the program that will be adopted by Math 950 next spring. Math 960 and 1010 will also adopt the TERM model beginning next summer. John Thaeler, director of the developmental math program, attributed the quick development and implementation of the TERM model to a collective enthusiasm for the change.
“We haven’t had to fight the administration,” Thaeler said. “We haven’t had people within the program dragging their feet.”
Many students currently enrolled in developmental math do not share Thaeler’s enthusiasm for the change. The principal reason students  are skeptical is that the new model will discontinue classroom lectures. Even after student Kelsey Capoferri was told that the TERM model would facilitate individual interaction between students and teachers, she was not convinced.
“For me, I don’t think that would be enough,” Capoferri said. “I mean, I’m really bad at math so I need as much help as I can get. I think you really do need someone to teach you; it’s something I think that’s really hands-on.”
Capoferri’s Math 950 course, based on the old model, includes three lectures and one lab a week. The TERM program will still require students to attend an hour of lab each week and an hour of class. However, instead of providing a formal lecture, the instructor will assist and monitor students as they progress through a minimum of one My Math Lab Plus module each week.
Students will be able to retake modules, quizzes and tests as many times as they choose but are required to achieve a score of at least 70 percent for each. Quizzes and tests will be offered at Ogden and Davis campus testing centers.
“When students start to take tests by choice to improve their grade rather than to just get by, then good things begin to happen,” Thaeler said. “For the first time in their lives, in some cases, they can make an A in math and nobody is controlling that except themselves.”
Classes will cap at 22 students. Students will be able to work at their own pace and if they finish their coursework early, they will have the option of moving on to the next course for no additional course fee. Thaeler said this will allow students to complete three developmental math courses in one to two semesters. 
“It will offer students something that they really need, which is being able to move at a pace that is more compatible with where their education is,” said Pam Schilling, a developmental math lecturer. 
The TERM model will help students learn math through online text, tutorials, video lectures and interaction with teachers and math tutors. Students will also have the option of purchasing a textbook from the bookstore.
The developmental math department will closely track students as they move through developmental math into upper-division courses.
“The ultimate measure of success is whether these students are able to progress through developmental math,” Ostlie said. “And once they’ve moved into quantitative literacy courses, are they successful in those courses.”
Other institutions that have implemented a similar program have done research that suggests their developmental math students do at least as well and possibly better in upper-level math than students who originally placed into quantitative literacy courses.
For more information about the the TERM model visit http://programs.weber.edu/TERM/.