Mathematics Placement and Student Success: the High School / College Disconnect Dave Boyles PI of 2009 11 UW-System Grant Prof. of Mathematics, UW Platteville boyles@uwplatt.edu
UW-Platteville New Freshman Headcount (% of Enrollment) Fall 2000 Fall 2005 Fall 2010 1,003 (18.0%) 1,246 (19.1%) 1,604 (20.2%) With this kind of growth, we need to ask hard questions about the consequences of admitting larger and larger numbers of students. Many of them are simply being set up for failure. 2
UWP Math Competency requirement: every student must have passed one of Finite Math 1630, Math of Finance 1730, Elementary Statistics 1830, Math for Elementary Teachers II 2030, or any higher math course (Trig, Calculus, ) before they can graduate. College Algebra: 1530 does not meet the requirement. 3
The UW System Math Placement Test many skills which are taught in the high school mathematics courses are not included in the test. The test is a tool to assist advisors in placing students into the best course in the universitylevel mathematics sequence. It is not a measure of everything that is learned in high school math courses. http://testing.wisc.edu/math%20test.html 4
Remedial Math Placement at UWP Intermediate Algebra (MATH 15) for students who place below College Algebra Beginning Algebra (MATH 10) for those students who are not prepared for MATH15. 47% of fall term, new, freshmen in the years 2004 10 had to take one of these two courses. The percentage of UWP students placing into MATH 10 grew from 9% in 2000 to 23% in 2008. What must the percentage be in 2011? 5
UW-System, new freshmen in Fall 2006 Math remediation was required by 18.3%. Math remediation Retained to 2 nd year Retained to 3 rd year Not required 78.2% 66.9% Completed 1 st year 77.0% 56.8% Not complete 1 st year 43.4% 29.4% 6
Freshmen entering full-time in Fall 2002 Math remediation was required by 10.6%. Math remediation Graduation by 6 th year Not required 67.5% Completed 1 st year 51.1% Not complete 1 st year 36.4% http://www.wisconsin.edu/opar/reports/remediation.pdf 7
UWP Institutional Research Students from 2004 09 who placed into 1530 or above had an overall 2 nd -year retention rate of 80% vs. MATH 15 placement: 73% and MATH 10 placement: 66%. This 14% difference translates to 216 full-time enrollments lost to UWP, which cost the university over a million and a half dollars in possible tuition money last year. From 2004 09, the DWFI rate in MATH 10 for URM (under-represented minorities) was 61%. The DWFI rate in MATH 10 for non-urm students was 37%. 8
UWP Institutional Research Of the five courses with the highest DFWI rates among Freshmen and Sophomore level lectures occurring between Fall 2004 and Summer 2011 with 500 or more enrollments, four were MATH. Course Course Description Count of ABC Grades Count of DFWI Grades Percent DFWI MATH 15 INTERMEDIATE ALGEBRA 2274 1664 42% MATH 1530 COLLEGE ALGEBRA 1446 1041 42% MATH 10 ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA 1341 869 39% ENGLISH 10 FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGLISH 389 249 39% MATH 1730 MATH OF FINANCE 864 548 39% 9
Supporting the Growth Agenda grant Action Steps addressed by our grant proposal: to collaborate with the PK-12 Community to enrich college preparation in mathematics, to better align high school courses with college credit-bearing courses. Grant team: PIs: Dave Boyles and Pam Peters, together with 12 other UWP math faculty or academic staff. Primary focus: meetings with high school math teachers, and collecting placement data from students. 10
Teacher Meetings Nov., Dec. 2009: meetings with about 80 local high school teachers where we explained the concerns motivating our work, the expectations college math teachers have of students in the classroom; the Early Math Placement Test Mike Fish, UW System March, April 2010: over 150 local high school teachers, 14 UWP math faculty, and representatives from Admissions, the Registrar, the Provost, etc., came together to discuss strategies high schools could implement to help prepare students for college math. 11
Teacher Meetings October 2010: with 82 local high school teachers, 10 UWP math faculty, and several administrators, Transition/Senior math classes; the Common Core State Standards with Diana Kasbaum & Jodean Grunow, DPI Consultants February 2011: the Common Core State Standards District CCSS awareness & perceived needs Paul Sandrock, DPI Content and Learning Team Conceptual Categories Jodean Grunow: Number, Algebra, and Function Assessing Understanding A district s coverage of the standards Where do we go from here? 12
Teacher Meetings March 23, 2011 9:00 Welcome DB 9:15 Student Survey Results BC 9:30 Preparation for Calculus in Pre-Calculus Class 11:00 Comparison of Grading Rubrics: Group Discussion 12:00 Lunch 12:45 Two Years in Perspective: Panel Discussion 1:55 Summary and Closing DB October 25, 2011 5:00 Welcome DB 5:15 Update on Student Survey Statistics BC 5:30 Dinner 6:30 Student Algebra Mistakes: Group Discussion 7:55 Summary and Closing DB 13
Student Interviews In Fall 2009, some faculty on the grant team interviewed about 20 student volunteers, who had not been successful in their initial math course, wanting to hear their perceptions on what had gone wrong, and asking them for ideas on what might help future students to succeed where they had failed. Professors talking with students like this can be very enlightening, but it was difficult to recruit interviewees. For one thing, not many students want to identify themselves as having failed. This was eventually abandoned. 14
Student Surveys In Fall 2010, 495 students completed the survey. An identical survey in Spring 2011 reached 596 students. Questions included what they thought were obstacles to their success, what their placement expectations had been, and what path had been taken through high school math. The surveys were administered in the classroom to students enrolled in selected sections of lowerdivision mathematics courses (i.e., below Trig 2530). Everyone on the grant team participated in the (quite labor-intensive) chore of tabulating responses. 15
Fall 2010: Years of High School math 16
First college math course 23, 5% 75, 16% 191, 39% 170, 35% 25, 5% Remedial GenEd Alg/Trig/Precalc Calc I Calc II 17
Actual vs. anticipated placement 18
Feeling about placement after first math course 19
How was the transition to college math? 20
Spring 2011: Initial grade vs. 4 th year math Grade in 1 st Math Course No Senior Math Senior Math A 15% 27% B 24% 29% C 20% 23% D 16% 12% F 20% 12% W 5% 7% 21
Placement level vs. 4 th year math Placement Level No Senior Math Senior Math Remedial (10 or 15) 75% 29% College Algebra 13% 14% General Education 9 % 6% Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry 3% 28% Calculus 1 or 2 0% 23% 22
Fixing the problem of bad placement National Urge high schools to guide their college-bound students into a senior year math course. Wisconsin Examine the content of the math placement exam and the Common Core Assessments, and learn the difference. Ensure that every student entering a System school is aware of the importance of taking the MPT seriously. In particular, encourage high schools to tell students to use the EMPT, https://testing.exams.wisc.edu/empt/home. UW-Platteville There are issues hardly mentioned in our grant-funded teacher meetings, so keep them going in some form. 23
It takes time for ideas to mature and take hold. One should not expect significant short-term results. If you re in it, you have to be in it for the long haul. What really counts, beyond one s personal contributions, and the relationships one builds, is capacity-building. (Schoenfeld, Working with Schools: The Story of a Mathematics Education Collaboration, American Mathematical Monthly, March 2009) 24