Dr. Paul Nolting's Academic Success Press Blog: A Publication Dedicated to Math Success |
Dr. Paul Nolting's Academic Success Press Blog: A Publication Dedicated to Math Success |
Hello Readers! To celebrate the success of the 2016 National Math Summit, Dr. Nolting wanted to briefly discuss the history of the conference and how this year's conference was possibly the best yet! Before we get to that, however, he wants to thank the following people: Dr. Nolting would like to thank the co-chairs: Taunya Paul, Julie Phelps, and Rebecca Goosen; the committee: Nancy Sattler, Beverly Vance, Wanda Garner, Linda Zientek Barbara Illowsky, and Jane Tanner; the panelists: Hunter Boylan, Rebecca Goosen, Paula White, Jane Tanner, Cinnamon Hillyard, April Ström, Amy Getz, Julie Phelps & Barbara Illowsky; and the panel’s moderators Julie Phelps and Rebecca Goosen. And now, without further ado, our chat! ASP Blog: I’m curious as to how the National Math Summit originated. Can you talk a little bit about the event’s beginnings?
Nolting: The whole idea of developing a math summit came about probably in 2011. Many states were beginning to mandate different redesigns and instructors were coming to different professional organizations—mainly NADE, MAA, and AMATYC—and saying that they didn’t know how to do the redesigns that they’d been told to implement (accelerated, emporium model, modular, or contextualized courses). At some point, I talked to Hunter Boylan, who is head of the National Center of Developmental Education, and I said, “We really need a math summit to talk about ways to help students become more successful in math classes.” The idea was that a lot of these organizations have what I call the “puzzle pieces of math success.” But we had never had a chance to put all of these pieces together. I talked to Hunter and we tried to get some support for a potential summit. It took us about a year, and eventually I talked to Jim Roznowski at a NADE conference. He was president of AMATYC at that time. He pretty much agreed in 2012, that we needed to get everyone together. At the same conference, I talked to Rebecca Goosen. At the time she was president of NADE. I asked her if NADE would be willing to join us, and she said yes. Then we asked Julie Phelps to help us because we needed extra help and she was a member of AMATYC, NADE and MAA and was considered a leader in these organizations. As I started talking to different organizations such as the Carnegie Foundation and the Dana Center, the question became “How are we going to make this summit different from regular conferences?” Together we came up with the idea of not just doing the workshop itself, but also having time for faculty to meet with mentors and develop a math success plan. After getting help from an expert, faculty could go back to their college and use what they learned to help to develop curriculum. In November 2013, at the AMATYC conference, we had the first national math summit. ASP Blog: Did it meet your initial expectations? Nolting: At first we thought we’d only have 50 people. That’s what we agreed upon. Later on, we thought maybe 100 would show up. Then we had people calling us from all around the country trying to get in. We had the opportunity to bring attendance up to 150, but we still wound up turning away about 300 people who kept calling and wanting to get in. We couldn’t host any more than 150 because of the lack of space. It wound up going very well. We field-tested the ideas of workshops and having mentors helping faculty develop their college Math Success Plan for College Innovation. The main comment after that summit was: “When can we have another one?” After that we had a series of math summits at various conferences that were mainly panel discussions. The panel discussions went pretty well, but then people kept asking for another workshop format. This last March, NADE and AMATYC sponsored one as a NADE pre-conference. We had the panel, and this time we divided it up with different members from different organizations. We decided to have two strands. One strand was on redesign; the other was on assessment. Now we were able to address concerns from our colleagues who were saying, “We did what we were supposed to do, but we don’t know how to assess it”; or, “We did assess it, and it didn’t work too well. What now?” So this time we offered the redesign track and the assessment track, so people could have their specific needs met. Again, we thought we’d have about 200 people. We wound up with about 300. ASP Blog: So the most recent summit went well? Nolting: Yes. The workshops were really well attended. People had positive comments. Again we had time where mentors worked individually with instructors. In fact, the instructors actually signed up for different mentors based upon what they liked, based on their own issues and needs. It was very successful. The reason I’m talking about this is that it has become clear through the math summits that working together is important. Between all of the organizations involved— NADE, AMATYC, the National Center for Developmental Education, the Dana Center, Carnegie Foundations, Mathematics Association of America, and myself— we have the answers to a lot of the questions faculty are dealing with. If we all get together and put the puzzle pieces together we can find a blueprint for math success. When we start looking at what the Summit actually does, it develops a community of experts to help our math faculty and administrators find more success with their students. Our goal is to have students take math until they don’t need to take it. We want them to be successful in college, then in their careers. The whole point of the National Math Summit was to get instructors together with the best experts in the country to get trained on how to either assess or how to develop a redesign. Once students are placed into accelerated courses, modular courses, emporium courses, where they get less instruction, we have to teach students to become better learners. The research now shows that affective characteristics of students’ learning is now responsible for 41% of the variance for their grades. We can’t ignore this anymore. We have to make students better learners. That transcends all curriculum. This makes it more important to add academic support through math labs and learning resource centers to compensate for the imbalance between math skills and the prerequisite requirements of math courses. ASP Blog: What does the future hold for potential National Math Summits? Nolting: What we want to do in the future is to use the National Math Summit to figure out the needs of instructors and administrators that we maybe haven’t thought of yet. We did ask participants this at the end of the discussion. Also, when we asked whether or not we should have another National Math Summit, over 100 people raised their hands. It looks like we might do it again at AMATYC in 2017. That is not for sure, but there is interest in doing it. ASP Blog: Is there anything else you want to add? Nolting: Another point I brought up is that we need to really focus on repeating students. We need to meet with students, and we need to use assessment to figure out what is blocking their ability to learn math. We need to determine their study skills, their motivation, their locus of control, their anxiety levels. Then we need to form specific math success plans. If we can have repeaters obtain the same or greater amount of success as their first time peers and then move on to their next courses, we will see a marked improvement in our overall success rates and graduation.
2 Comments
7/18/2019 10:03:26 pm
If you want to get a helpful insight about things that are happening around you, it's perfect to as Dr. Nolting because his views and opinions are truly worth knowing. There are couple of people I've gotten an idea from regarding 2016 National Math Summit, and Dr. Nolting's words are really moving. it was not just a usual summit for him because it was an experience of a lifetime for him. Hopefully, there are more changes that will happen this year!
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AuthorDr. Nolting is a national expert in assessing math learning problems, developing effective student learning strategies, assessing institutional variables that affect math success and math study skills. He is also an expert in helping students with disabilities and Wounded Warriors become successful in math. He now assists colleges and universities in redesigning their math courses to meet new curriculum requirements. He is the author of two math study skills texts: Winning at Math and My Math Success Plan. Blog HighlightsAmerican Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges presenter, Senior Lecturer-Modular Reader Contributions
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