Concordia University-Portland

Course Title: Precalculus Mathematics
Redesign Coordinator: Mark Wahlers

Status: This project originated as part of NCAT's FIPSE-funded Roadmap to Redesign (R2R) program, 2003 – 2006. Due to a variety of factors, this project was not completed. The project plan serves as a good example of how to think about redesigning a large-enrollment course.

Project Plan:
Concordia University-Portland plans to redesign four precalculus math lab courses, which collectively have the highest enrollment at the university. During the 2003-2004 academic year, these four courses produced 217 enrollments from among 811 undergraduate students. Section size is kept low; the 28 sections offered each year average 15 students each. The courses are taught by one full-time faculty member teaching an overload and two adjunct faculty members. Each math lab course requires a considerable amount of faculty time to facilitate.

The lab courses are both expensive and inefficient. The instructors are the sole source of live instruction and must hand grade all assessments. Given the lack of sufficient self-study resources, the math labs make exceptional demands on the faculty members who provide considerable amounts of one-on-one instruction. Material is covered sequentially during a set lecture schedule, which requires a very diverse learning community to move fairly lock-step through the curriculum. At any given time, a significant number of students are engaged in instruction at an inappropriate level or waiting for the appropriate section to be offered. The net result is that it takes a considerable amount of time (much of it wasted) for students to advance through the math lab curriculum.

Concordia plans to use the Replacement Model in its redesign and will make available a variety of learner-centered exercises and instructional resources, both human-led and computer-based. The learning resources will provide students with interactive remedial math instruction and opportunities for guided practice. Such resources include interactive tutorials, digitally recorded presentations and demonstrations as well as exercises and quizzes that give students needed practice and automated feedback. Students will be empowered to engage the course material at a more flexible pace.

The redesign will positively affect course quality insofar as it will create an empowering learner-centered environment with a variety of learning opportunities that will respond to a diversity of learning modes and styles. Learners will have increased choice and control over how they engage the content. By easing the instructional and assessment burden on the instructor, there will be increased opportunity for faculty/student interaction and differentiated instruction. Additional anticipated outcomes include increased faculty satisfaction with facilitating the courses, increased student satisfaction with taking the courses and reduced time for students to complete the curriculum.

Both qualitative and quantitative measures will be used to assess the impact of the course redesign on student learning. During the pilot phase, the team will run parallel sections of randomly selected students in the traditional and redesigned formats. Identical assessment measures (objective tests and interviews) and procedures will be used to produce valid comparative learning outcome data. During the full implementation phase, baseline data gathered from the traditional section offered during the pilot phase will be compared with data from the fully redesigned courses.

The redesign will reduce the number of sections, allowing a single faculty member to facilitate all of the math lab courses. By combining sections and increasing section size, the cost-per-student will drop from $350 in the traditional format to $173 in the redesign. One full-time faculty member will teach all math lab sections as part of her regular load and will not need to teach any overload sections. In addition, the redesign will eliminate the need for adjunct professors.

Quick Links:

Roadmap to Redesign Main Page...