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2016/2017 Mathematics program review

2016/2017 Mathematics program review. Contributors: Doug Gardner Mary Middleton Tracy Davenport Elijah Bunnell. How does your department fulfill the larger work of the college?

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2016/2017 Mathematics program review

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  1. 2016/2017 Mathematics program review Contributors: Doug Gardner Mary Middleton Tracy Davenport Elijah Bunnell

  2. How does your department fulfill the larger work of the college? • The primary mission of Rogue Community College is to help students achieve their goals by providing them a high quality education. The math department offers courses that prepare students to be successful in nearly every program of study available at RCC. 1. Mission overview

  3. Spring 2011: pilot MTH63 alternate pathway course. In the 15/16 school year, we had 201 students take this course. • Summer 2011: received 1st NSF grant. Began teaching week-long summer math institutes as college credit professional development for community college and high school instructors • Fall 2012: Include professional development in every department meeting. • Fall 2013: received 2nd NSF grant. Continue summer math institute, adding training in comprehension and application of our MTH96 curriculum. • Fall 2013: launch faculty resources website where instructors share innovative problems and approaches to teaching concepts, projects and assessments. • Fall 2013: faculty maintain and use RCC-supported websites to post syllabi, reviews, class notes, hand-outs, and projects. • Fall 2015: Begin assigning summative projects in every math course. Projects should be interesting and engaging and require the student to "do something“. Goal: to improve student persistence, retention, and higher order thinking skills. • Spring 2015: pilot MTH96 alternate pathway course. In the 15/16 school year we had 278 students take this course. • Fall 2016: started a math scholarship (math faculty donate over $1000/year) • Spring 2017: pilot MTH15A Fastrack placement course. 2. Profile … brief history

  4. 2. Profile … enrollment * average decline for the last 5 years: 9.1% RWC, 4.7% RVC

  5. 2. Profile … completer pass rates

  6. 2. Profile … college now courses

  7. Classified staff: FT: 2 PT: 0 • We could use another full time instructor at RVC, to balance the PT:FT ratio of courses taught between the campuses, who can be devoted to the developmental math sequence and its attenuating challenges. PT:FT ratio of courses taught at RWC = 1.19, at RVC = 2.28 (average over the last 3 years) • RVC students and tutors would benefit greatly if the math faculty offices were located near the tutoring center. 2. Profile … staffing

  8. How do your programs reflect national/regional/program/discipline trends? • A regional trend at Oregon community colleges has been the introduction of a non-STEM-major path through the developmental sequence to a college level math course. In our department, this sequence consists of MTH63  MTH96  MTH105 or MTH243. • According to recently collected data, MTH96 students do as well as MTH95 students in our MTH243 courses. The pass rates are 72.6% and 73.6% respectively for a population of 110 students in each group. MTH96 students out-perform MTH95 students in our MTH105 courses. The pass rates are 82.4% and 75.6% respectively for a population of 35 students in each group. 3. Program context ... Regional trends

  9. How do your programs reflect national/regional/program/discipline trends? • A national trend has been the Growth Mindset idea introduced by author Carol Dweck. This has branched off to the idea of Mathematical Mindsets, and is being presented across the United States and in England by Stanford professor Jo Boaler. Our department reflects some of the concepts within this trend, such as using projects to increase engagement, foster critical thinking, and improve problem solving skills. The college is sending a team of faculty to a Growth Mindset Institute this spring, and the math department has a representative in this group. “When students see mathematics as a set of ideas and relationships and their role as one of thinking about the ideas, and making sense of them, they have a mathematical mindset.” -Jo Boaler 3. Program context ... Regional trends

  10. Discuss local trends or issues in the community or the college that impact your program. • An issue within the college has been the low placement of students starting the math sequence, and the resulting lower completion rate when students have many courses to get through at the developmental level. Two possible routes are being explored. One is the introduction of a MTH15A course, for which the math department will have input on the material that is included in the self-paced ALEKS design. The other is a revised placement process which includes high school GPA as a determining factor. These are also both regional trends for Oregon community colleges. 3. Program context … local trends

  11. Describe how you gather external stakeholder feedback • External stakeholder feedback is gathered informally, through discussions and emails. As an example the CTE departments at RCC regularly report that our MTH63 students are successful in their programs. RCC students have traditionally been very successful at 4-year universities as measured comparatively by GPA. • We meet with SOU every year at the articulation retreat to discuss trends and issues. This year, for example, they noted that students need to take MTH254 and MTH261 at RCC to finish a math degree at SOU on time in 2 years. • We check with other programs regarding whether a certain course will work as a prerequisite based on the material covered in the course. MTH96 is the most recent example of this. In addition, certain material such as Unit Analysis has been included in MTH60 due to discussions with other departments. We have worked with SOU on the transferability of courses as well. Based on meetings with their department chair, SOU is also taking our MTH96 as a prerequisite for their MTH243 courses for transfer students. 3. Program context … stakeholders

  12. Mathematics Program Learning Outcomes: • Students will be able to solve problems by creating mathematical models using efficient mathematical tools and selecting appropriate technology. • Students will be able to recognize and appreciate mathematics in context and display a curiosity and confidence for problem solving. • Students will be able to accurately interpret the solution to a problem, including recognizing the reasonableness of the result. We have made a concerted effort the last 2 years to include projects in all our courses to address the critical thinking aspects in all our PLO’s. • PLO assessment methods: • Tests, Projects, Homework, informal feedback from our stake holders at RCC (CTE programs, science, computer science, business, nursing) 4. plo’s and assessment

  13. We would like to see the ratio increase for sections taught by full time instructors. One of our goals is to do a better job supervising, which is very difficult with 27+ part time instructors. • We plan to move to an OER curriculum for MTH 20 – 95 as early as fall term 2017. Based on the number of students in 15/16: • With the opportunity to reconsider our curriculum, we plan to address the low MTH60 pass rate by decreasing the number of concepts it covers. We are looking to include study skills as an integral part of the course and encourage instructors to address why one would do math with letters as a regular and integrated part of class discussion. 5. Significant changes

  14. We are planning to place more students into math classes based on GPA and last math course taken begin in fall 2017. • We plan to improve the mentoring of adjunct faculty in ensuing years. Effective instructors will observe adjunct faculty and adjunct faculty will observe effective instructors. 5. Significant changes

  15. Many ILOs are covered at some point in our curriculum. Overall, we have identified at least 12 out of the 25 possible ILOs that are addressed in at least one math course. In particular, mathematics courses strongly emphasize Approach to Learning (AL), Application of Knowledge (AK), Critical Thinking (CT), and Communication (COM) outcomes. • AK1 – Demonstrate ability to transfer learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts in order to complete tasks: 60, 63, 65, 95, 112, 211, 212, 213, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256 • AK2 – Integrate previous and new learning, along with practical skills, to solve problems: 60, 63, 65, 95, 105, 111, 112, 211, 212, 213, 243, 251, 252, 254, 256, 261 • AK4 – Use numeracy skills for interpretation, synthesis, and analysis of data: 63, 95, 105, 111, 112, 211, 212, 213, 243, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 261 • AL1 – Understand and accept responsibility for learning: 211, 261 • AL3 – Internalize and assimilate information into new situations: 65, 95, 112, 211, 212, 213 • AL4 – Pursue goals by creating strategies over time: 251, 252, 254, 256 • AL5 – Use technological tools to research new information, solve problems, and communicate effectively: 105, 211, 212, 213, 261 • CT2 – Raise significant and relevant questions: 211, 212, 213 • CT3 – Locate, organize, analyze, and interpret data: 60, 65, 95, 96, 105, 111, 112, 243, 251, 252, 254, 256, 261 • CT4 – Envision creative approaches to issues and problems: 111, 112, 212, 213, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256 • COM2 – Express ideas clearly in oral, written and visual work: 65, 95, 105, 111, 112, 212, 213, 243, 251, 252, 254, 256, 261 • COM3 – Collaborate effectively to achieve course/learning goals: 63, 243, 251, 252, 254, 256, 261 6. ilo’s

  16. • improve supervision and staff development … math can be a sterile, irrelevant subject for many students and we would like to equip our instructors to “connect” with their students so they attend regularly, are taught to think mathematically, and feel they are learning a valuable subject. • implement new placement approach … thank you Navarro Chandler and academic skills for starting math fast track. • improve MTH60 pass rate • implement OER MTH 20 – 95 curriculum • create a program map for our math courses • create a supervision plan for new or struggling PT instructors 7. summary … challenges

  17. • focus on professional development • Dan Meyer Ted Talk: Math Class Needs a Makeover: How to include projects to make your students think and increase engagement: • Read and discussed “Measurement” by Paul Lockhart • Engineering 211 (Statics) beam deflection problem • How beam design works • Newton’s Method for finding an inverse • How suspension bridge cables work • sharing good ideas among instructors to help connect math to their student’s lives more meaningfully. • including projects to increase engagement and retention • a functional alternate pathway in MTH 63/96 • Summer math institute … sharing the fruits of our NSF grant with other stake holders • decrease textbook costs for students • updated and useful department website: http://go.roguecc.edu/department/mathematics and faculty resources website: http://mathfacultyresources.com/ 7. Summary … strengths

  18. 2016/2017 Mathematics program review Questions: Teresa Rivenes Compliments: Doug Gardner Tracy Davenport

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