February » 2013 » Carol J. Carter

Coaching the Developmental Student to Success in Math

As many as 1.7 million first-year students will take a remedial course to learn the math, reading, or writing skills they need to enroll in a credit-earning college-level course. Of all remedial courses most students are remediated in math skills. Due to a variety of factors — class dynamics, curricula, instruction, Â skill-level, academic support, financial standing, life — retaining and passing students in a remedial course is a major concern.

Colorado Community College System conducted a longitudinal remedial math study that tracked remedial math students for 4 years. They found that though the majority of students required remedial math, math had the lowest pass rate of all remedial classes.
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The Changing Face of Developmental Education: So Goes Colorado, So Goes the Nation

This week, Denver will be hosting the National Association for Developmental Education Conference.Â This organization is made up of thousands of members who are dedicated to helping students who come to collegeÂ withoutÂ the skills required to enroll in a college-level course in math, reading or writing.Â As many as 1.7 million first-year students entering both two-year and four-year colleges will take a remedial course to learn the skills they need to enroll in a college-level course. Less than one-quarter of students attending a two-year college who take a remedial course will complete a college-level English or math class.¹

For many students who need to take remedial courses, they will be required to take up to three remedial courses per discipline before qualifying to enroll in a credit-earning class.² In some states, like Colorado, change is afoot.Â Instead of offering three classes in math and three in English and reading, these classes will be collapsed into one classÂ for each discipline.Â Â Much of the learning will be self-paced at community colleges where the student to advisor ratio is 1500 to 1.³Â Students will need to take initiative for their own learning, work with staff when they have questions they need answered and be accountable for their own personal improvement plans. These steps will provide a successful on ramp to other classes that are more challenging and require more rigor, self-discipline and collaboration with classmates once these basic requirements are met.

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Study Finds College Students Not Preparing for Career After Graduation

A new study finds that college students are not aggressively preparing for their careers while in college, and that their lack of career efforts may be seriously hurting their future job prospects, according to The Student Career Development Study.

The study also found that the majority of college students (95%) have a Facebook account, while only 34% of students have a LinkedIn account. College students see the value of having an internship — with over half of students having over three internships in college — Â while 93 percent do not have an understanding of personal branding.

Is it the fault of the student that they are not actively pursuing their career while juggling deadlines for their history exam, their English paper, and their internship? Is it the fault of the university that the English teacher doesn’t make a connection between critical reading skills and the real world, the adviser doesn’t advise beyond the pinnacle goal of graduation day, or the business professor teaches theories without obvious ties to how they will help the student move from graduate to employed professional? Or, with the majority of students getting mentored on a profession by their parents (37 %), maybe it’s the parent’s fault?

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Math Affects Investments in College and Leads to Graduation

A discouraging fact is that many low-income U.S. students today lack the opportunity to study higher level mathematics in high school. According to the U.S. Department of Educationâ€™s Office for Civil Rights Data, there are close to 3,000 high schools serving nearly 500,000 students that fail to offer Algebra II or higher level math.Â For these students, performance on college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT that include higher level algebra questions is negatively affected.

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Math Expands the Mind Beyond Equations

We know our math scores aren’t competitive with other developed countries. We all know someone, or we may be someone, who dislikes math. But why does an interest in math matter? Yes, being competitive in the global arena is crucial for our nation’s advancement.Â Yes, taking a math course is required to graduate. But math helps individuals accomplish much more than an “A” on their exam.

On the most basic level, learning math promotes analytical thinking skills. Dr. Vinod Menon, professor of psychiatry and neurological sciences at Stanford University, has conducted research illustrating how one year of math instruction has significant impact on the brainâ€™s approach to problem-solving as revealed through brain scans of second and third graders.¹ As students move through math curricula from elementary to high school, they must learn to apply what they know to new ideas and different types of problems, building more complex thinking processes. Years of math where students work through steps, identify patterns, and apply complex thought processes hardwires the brain for deeper level thinking.

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What Can Be Done to Improve Americaâ€™s Math Performance?

There is no question that the need to improve American studentsâ€™ math scores has garnered much attention on a national level. U.S. Education officials have been pushing reform for years now. We simply arenâ€™t going to be able to compete with our global competitors in knowledge-based fields if we continue to fall short in math and science. So what can we do?

Set high expectations

According to the College Readiness report by ACT, students who take the recommended core curriculum for high school including three years of math achieve higher ACT scores than those who donâ€™t, regardless of socio-economic background, race and gender.¹

But expectations for students to take and succeed at high level math and science courses in high school must be balanced by preparing them well in early years to do just this.

Our expectations for students to succeed at high levels of math and science need to be rooted in deep learning early on and continued support throughout the years, rather than pushing high level curriculum down the pipeline to earlier grades.

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How Math Skills Can Fuel the U.S. Economy

As a result of lost manufacturing and outsource jobs, the U.S. needs to look to the futureâ€”to new opportunities and growing markets to be able to compete globally, and all indicators point to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

According to research compiled by the Joint Economic Committee Chairmanâ€™s Staff in their report, â€œSTEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future,â€ technology innovations have fueled the American economy, with some studies crediting over half of our economic growth in the past fifty years coming from improved productivity resulting from innovation. And the trend seems to be continuing. The demand for workers with degrees in the STEM fields is rising and expected to increase according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Education Equity: Involving Students, Parents, Community this Summer

Children from low-income families tend to fall behind their more affluent peers in every stage of life. They are less likely to be prepared to enter school at age 5, achieve academic and social competencies by the end of elementary schools graduate from high school with good grades, no crime involvement, or teen pregnancy, or achievement equivalent income in their twenties.[i]Â

This summer, LifeBound is working to equalize summer learning opportunities for students by assisting communities, organizations, school districts, and individuals in creating a summer learning solution that fits their students’ needs. Early and consistent intervention is key to student success.
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