SUNY at Oswego
Course Title: College Algebra
Contact: Patricia Pacitti
SUNY Oswego plans to redesign College Algebra, the first course in the Algebra/Calculus sequence that is offered for graduation credit. The traditional course is a three-credit hour, lecture based course, enrolling ~200 students annually. It is typically taught by different instructors in nine sections, five in the fall and four in the spring semesters.
College Algebra faces a number of academic and resource problems. Over the past five years, the average course GPA was 1.96 with ~63% of the students completing the course with a C- or better. Since successful completion of the course is required for a variety of majors, there is collegewide concern about this low success rate. A second academic problem is course drift. There is no guarantee that all instructors cover all topics, no consistency in the rigor and depth of coverage, and no set standard for assessment and evaluation. Current student demand is unmet due to resource problems, creating academic issues for students who opt to skip the course and go directly to the next math course in their sequence with unsuccessful results. Demand is expected to grow due to recent changes in the biological sciences major and the creation of a computer software engineering major. Finally, the pool of available full-time and adjunct faculty to teach this course is severely limited.
SUNY Oswego will redesign College Algebra using the Emporium Model. Section size will be increased from ~22 to ~50 students. Instructors will meet with one third to one half of each section for one hour each week, using the class time to present an overview of the coming week’s scheduled topics, engaging students in small group activities, troubleshooting, and making connections that could include real-life applications. The reduced class time will be replaced with three required hours of interactive learning activities in a computer lab, staffed by trained personnel.
The student-centered learning environment created by the redesigned course will enhance the quality of the course. Students will be more actively engaged with the material both in the delivery of the content and in the completion of the homework. Hawkes Learning System software delivers instruction, provides practice problems with immediate feedback in the form of step-by-step intelligent explanations and demands mastery certification of homework assignments before students can progress. Face-to-face interaction will be increased and become more individualized as students are assisted in the lab by instructors and/or undergraduate learning assistants (ULAs). Topics covered, quizzes, assignments and portions of exams will be standardized across sections and semesters, eliminating course drift.
SUNY Oswego’s assessment plan will use the comparisons of pre- and post-tests, measuring increases in student learning. The department will create an exam based on their defined expected learning outcomes, which will be administered to all College Algebra students at the beginning and the end of the semester. Pre- and post-testing will begin in the fall 2008 semester with five traditional sections (110 students) to obtain baseline data in the traditional course. Pre/post-tests will be administered to two pilot redesigned sections with 50 students each in spring 2009 and to four redesigned sections in fall 2009 during full implementation.
The redesigned course will decrease the cost-per-student from $387 to $226, a 42% savings. The savings will be achieved by changing the mix of personnel, reducing the number of instructors from seven to three, and increasing annual student enrollment by 50%, from 200 to 300 students. The number of sections will be reduced from nine to six, and section size will be increased from ~22 to~50. The savings will be reinvested at the department level to provide professional development, to purchase advanced technology for classrooms and to supplement the tutoring budget.
Quick Links:
