The University of Southern Mississippi
Course Title: Intermediate Algebra
Contact: Janice Fletcher
The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) plans to redesign Intermediate Algebra, a traditional lecture-based course meeting five hours per week. Total enrollment during AY 2007-2008 was approximately 1000 students with ~30 students per section. In spring 2007, a partial redesign was implemented using the Emporium Model where a number of sections reduced the lecture time to one hour per week and required three hours in the mathematics learning center.
The traditional course suffers from course drift and a low, 45% success rate of C or better. Although there is a course coordinator and a common final exam which is graded using a common rubric, other tests and exams are created and graded by the instructors who are free to choose the questions and corresponding rubric.
USM’s course redesign will complete the conversion of Intermediate Algebra to the Emporium Model. All students will be required to spend three hours per week in the learning center working with MyMathLab. Homework, quizzes and tests will be completed online. The learning center will be staffed by a combination of instructors, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and advanced undergraduates to help students as they work through their assignments. All GTA and undergraduate tutors will have completed the homework and taken the quizzes, giving them familiarity with the content and the software. Finally, groups of 40 students will also meet in a classroom one hour per week.
The redesigned course will enhance the students’ educational experience, making them active and engaged learners and providing a consistent learning experience for all. Students will receive immediate feedback as well as individual assistance. Instructors will closely monitor student progress and take action in a timely manner to address deficiencies. Course drift will be eliminated as course delivery, assignments and tests become standard across sections.
The impact of the course redesign on student learning outcomes will be assessed by comparing baseline data from traditional sections to the redesigned sections. Performance on a common final exam graded with a common rubric will be compared. Pre- and post-test data in fall 2008 and spring 2009 will also be collected from both kinds of sections for a secondary assessment of student learning.
The redesigned course will reduce the cost-per-student from $96 to $76, a 21% savings. The savings will be achieved by reducing the number of sections from 25 prior to the partial redesign to 13 in the full redesign. Section size will be increased from 40 to 80, with each section split into groups of 40 for the class meeting. Two full-time faculty members will teach the redesigned course rather than the seven who previously taught the traditional course. The released instructors will teach other math courses, reducing the need for adjunct instructors. Savings will also be used for further redesign efforts and to provide tutoring for other course offerings.
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