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 |
ASP Blog: How can colleges determine what types of students belong in what types of courses. Is it a matter of assessment?
Goosen: Universities have an advantage here because they usually bring students in for several days of orientation. In that time, they have the ability to [assess and get to know students]. Community colleges usually, if they have orientation, have four hours for orientation. Often, what happens is, the first day students are in class, most instructors can pick out who has no clue about what they’ve said over the last hour. At San Jacinto, we do some assessment. What has happened in Texas is that our state has required that we do a pre-assessment activity. At my institution, we developed our own guide. We don’t have the education planners or the faculty advisors to spend a lot of time with these students, but our guide does feature non-cognitive questions. Things like, “What was the last math class you took?” Or, “Do you enjoy math?” Or, “How many hours do you work per week, and does your boss mind you being here?” Or, “How are you getting here, do you have reliable transportation?” Some of these questions give us insight into who these students are. For those students who say, “I have always hated math,” you aren’t going to put them into an accelerated pathway right away. We recruit for these pathways from our beginning classes. Instructors know [capable students]. They have an idea of who should go into what pathway because they’ve had a chance to work with the students. They have seen their work, they know them, they’ve had conversations with them, and we can then determine where they go. The important piece around that: we had a movement for a while that said, “Let’s do everything online. Let’s register them online, let’s advise them online, etc.” The problem with that was that the students we see need to know a face. They need personal interaction. That is why our Intentional Connections program is working because students see faces, and they go back to these faces, and they meet several people who can help them every semester. They don’t just visit an education planning office. Individual students always have the same faculty advisor, and they know who that advisor is, and they feel confident in what that person is going to tell them. We have many good advisors in our education planning center, but you always get a different one when you walk in the door. Consistency connects students to an institution. The repetitiveness of hearing, “You belong here, and here are the resources that can help you,” helps students get to where they need to go. It is more than whatever they got on a test score. Some schools have figured out how to give non-cognitive tests. They do use those in placement. We have more of a relaxed way to do it, but I think that it does get to the heart of who a student is rather than having him take an assessment that may or may not work. ASP Blog: What is it that has decreased the amount of face-to-face interaction in colleges? Is it that policymakers are worried about logistical issues, or is it some weird fear of defying modernity or something? It seems fairly obvious that students would benefit from personal attention. Goosen: It is mainly an economic thing. That’s just my opinion. It costs money to have people sitting in your advising center. Quite honestly, our students don’t typically go to the advising center. You have peak times, like right now, I’m sure there is a line outside of our advising center. But then what do you do a few weeks into the semester and everybody is enrolled? What do you do with all of these people that theoretically don’t have a job? You have to figure out what to do with them. We have integrated them into our instructional piece. They come to all of our student success courses, they are doing presentations, and they are reconnecting with students. We give them a job once they get students into classes. They are a part of what we are doing all year. Part of it is logistics. We don’t have enough advisors. We bring in 5,000 new students, not including returning students. That is a huge number of people. So we are trying to be more efficient about it. If you are new to our school and you are a developmental student who is forced into education planning, how we get around that is, they have to register during orientation. We take them into the lab and we register them. Many schools are doing this, and it is a really good technique. Get them for orientation, explain everything, take them into a lab and help them register. They still register on computers, but to have a person sitting next to you and help you through it, that becomes a huge part of this. Bottom line, it is personnel and people intensive. It costs money. Our state has, and most states have, cut budgets. [Our budget] used to be about 60% [from the state] and now we are down to 30%. Everything else is through tuition and property tax. So you try to be economical. Computers are cheaper. Still, students need to connect with someone at the institution. Quite honestly, this is usually the instructor in the classroom. Who do they see more? They go to orientation, and they see the lovely girl standing in front of the room, and they may never see her again. They don’t know her name. But when they go to the classroom two or three times a week, [the teacher] is the person that they come to know. I’m lucky that I work at an institution where the two sides have figured out how to do all of this [administrative and instructional]. It is not us against them. It is us together, trying to help students succeed. A lot of schools just don’t have the money to [pull this off]. ASP Blog: Is there any hope that budgets will some day increase, or is it more productive to learn how to thrive in this new status quo? You go anywhere, and you hear that college is expensive. And it is, and prices have gone up. I think community colleges are an economical oasis in a lot of places. My brother sent his kids to out of state Big 10 schools, then he figured out that the community college would have given him a better education cheaper. I kind of laughed when he told me that. Understanding that the education students receive at community colleges is quality is important. Students aren’t put in classes with 500 students. Teachers know their names. But having said all of that, I think there is a big push in the U.S. about how expensive college is. I don’t see the states contributing any more. I think the policymakers have been very effective in how they have influenced this agenda that developmental education is costing schools a lot. Most students who go to college are in the upper quartile economically. There is not a lot of room for growth there. Where there is room for growth is in the lower two quartiles of economic situations. They don’t have a lot of money to go to college. That is where colleges is where students are going to have to pull from to increase the number of workers we need, the number of students we need getting degrees and certificates. I don’t see that happening in the present economic situation. I don’t think a lot of people understand this.
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3/24/2023 02:20:11 am
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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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