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 |
Welcome back readers! As promised, here is part two of our interview with the founder of the Academic Success Press Blog, Dr. Paul Nolting! Scroll down for Part One; or, if you'd prefer, click here!
ASP Blog: Now that we have discussed the challenges of redesigning math courses, let’s discuss the benefits of these programs. How do these redesigned courses help students? Dr. Nolting: In the past we had students who only needed calculus or only needed statistics because they were either social science majors or business majors. Some of these students really got caught up in intermediate algebra, and they couldn’t go any further. Because they were stuck taking intermediate algebra four, five, six times, they just stopped and dropped out of school. Now what happens, with these different pathways, students may be able to go right from pre-algebra into quantitative analysis or statistics, which are not algebra-based. This eliminates the major barriers for community college students. My joke is: how do you create a course with a 100 percent pass rate? You don’t have students take it. If they don’t have to take intermediate algebra, they can go on to statistics. Also, research in statistics and finite math shows that those courses have higher pass rates than intermediate algebra and college algebra. Another positive thing about redesigns is that students with disabilities also used to get caught up in these courses. I’ve had students in these courses with poor abstract reasoning abilities who were not capable of passing intermediate algebra; however, their verbal reasoning skills were excellent. We put those students in statistics and they passed just as well as anyone else. The negative aspect to this, I mentioned a little bit earlier, is that some states decide what courses students can take based on cutoff scores. One state decided that if you didn’t score a 30 in the bottom of the test, you had to take a remedial course. Another state, I won’t mention its name, eliminated developmental education. So what I’m seeing is that some of the lower-level students may not get to take the math courses they need to be successful. That’s been a concern across the country: whom are we leaving out? In Texas, they are called bubble students. There are several colleges who are helping bubble students rise above the cutoff scores. Otherwise they might not earn their degree. ASP Blog: Where can students in redesigned math courses find support and help outside of the classroom? Dr. Nolting: The focus now is on trying to do the best you can inside the classroom, which involves several types of models. But what we are seeing is that some models have limitations that instructors can’t overcome, largely due to state mandates. This means we need to focus more on how to get students outside help. First, we need to think about learning support centers and math tutorial centers. These centers are now being called on to take on more responsibility to help students who are barely getting into math courses or who decide to take intermediate algebra so that they don’t have to take a placement test. So when we look at these learning support centers, we need to train these tutors to become academic coaches, train the tutors to learn how to assess how to make students better learners, and train the tutors to learn about learning styles and use these styles to fit the needs of individual students. They can also show students various online math programs, math apps, that kind of thing, to help students learn how to solve problems on their own. I’m really getting into training students how to use their cellphones to record the information they learn from their tutors. The other area involves working together with disabilities services and veteran’s services to help these students become more successful. When students with disabilities get involved in accelerated courses, the system doesn’t always work for them. They need outside resources to succeed. This means that universities and colleges should train their tutors specifically how to work with these students. ASP Blog: Moving on, can you discuss the current state of online math courses? Are they as popular as they used to be? And how do students typically fare in these courses? Dr. Nolting: Online math courses, about five years ago, were about the hottest topic around. I did research with several colleges, and every college we went to, their online math courses always had lower pass rates than traditional classroom courses. The exceptions were at colleges like Valencia College, where Fitzroy Farqhueson created courses with built-in Web-support. In these courses, students actually passed at higher rates than did students in traditional classrooms. After a while, online courses kind of faded out. Now that the redesign movement is in full cycle, they are starting to come back. In fact, what’s happening at some institutions is that if students can’t get through the modular or accelerated courses, their only options are online. I see these students heading in this direction without proper preparation. Our research indicates that students do have the computer skills to be successful, but what they don’t have is the organizational skills. They procrastinate, and they don’t have proper study skills. To take a course online is to become an independent learner. What we have to do is teach students better study skills and strategies. So I see a focus going back online in the next several years. Fitzroy and I actually just developed an online program, eMathready.com, which helps student prepare for online courses. It’s not a math program, per say. It is a program to help students with study skills, organization, anxiety, and other topics. It helps them understand different learning modalities as well. ASP Blog: Finally, I wanted to ask you a bit about working with students with disabilities. You have worked with these students for decades now. I’m curious how things have changed over the years. Dr. Nolting: Sure! The truth is, we have more and more students with disabilities come on campus every year. There are two groups coming on most rapidly. First, we have students with traumatic brain injuries or other students with short-term memory problems. Second, we have students with ADHD. What’s happening with them is that they are pretty smart, but they don’t have the ability to actually sit in a modular course. The hyperactivity part of ADHD makes these students want to move around, or it causes their minds wander. Some of these students really struggle in modular courses where they are sitting in a classroom by themselves. So what we’re trying to do is help them understand study skills, and specifically how their disabilities affect their ability to learn. I recently wrote a book, My Math Success Plan, which is for students with disabilities and for Wounded Warriors. That text talks about study skills, but also focuses on how disabilities affect math. That is what we are missing. A lot of tutors and math instructors have a hard time explaining how various disabilities affect learning. For instance, if a student has a visual processing disorder, they read more slowly than other students. Or if you have an abstract reasoning issue, and you find that you work best with manipulatives, tutors aren’t able to explain this to students. So what we did in that workbook is teach students study skills, teach students how their disabilities affect math, then we taught them how to create a plan. This is like an IEP plan or a mission plan for veterans. It walks them through a math study skills evaluation then addresses specific learning strategies that might compensate for any weak points in their learning. That’s our challenge: how to help these students become more successful!
5 Comments
7/25/2020 01:05:58 pm
It is awesome list.I wasn't aware of this feature of this article.thanks!
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7/27/2020 05:30:23 am
Couldn't be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
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7/29/2020 05:18:34 am
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1/6/2022 07:29:33 pm
Collaboration is essential to learning, and distance hasn't changed that it's probably more essential than ever. Students benefit from sharing their ideas and considering and building on the ideas of others.
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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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