A few years ago, Kelly Spoon decided to put her valuation method to the test.
Many instructors in the Mathematics Department at San Diego Mesa College, where she is a professor, are exploring ways to incorporate criteria-based grading (an approach that assesses how effectively students have mastered content) into the way they teach calculus. I was starting to.
They sat down and thought about what knowledge students needed to grasp and how much knowledge they needed to demonstrate proficiency. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Spoon began changing the way he handled quizzes in his calculus class. Spoon said that traditionally, grading for this course tends to emphasize student performance on a limited number of tests. There will likely be midterm exams, final exams, and other opportunities for students to demonstrate what they have learned. The problem with this approach is that if a student scores 50% on an early exam, she may feel that she cannot get it back and may reduce her effort for the rest of the semester or drop out of classes. she points out.
She has focused on changing grading methods in other classes, conducting more frequent assessments, providing opportunities to retake tests and quizzes, and building accommodations into her classes. For example, if you have a 2.5 hour class, make sure the test takes only her 1 hour. That way, students who need extra time won’t have to approach her to ask. Over time, I found that making these tweaks helped my students stick to the course, even if they got off to a rocky start.
Ms. Spoon has found that this change allows her to hold her students to a higher standard when explaining math concepts. This approach has resulted from promoting an emphasis on critical thinking in the classroom. You can encourage students to communicate more accurately about mathematics because they have more opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned.
Spoon’s experiment coincided with research into how student performance is affected by instructional practices.
Gateway courses such as statistics, algebra, and calculus serve as gateways to educational outcomes and future careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. There is growing interest in reform, as poor grades in these courses can put students off the path.
For Black and Latino students, especially in gateway courses, instructional practices are often the most important determinant of success or failure. new report.
sense of belonging’
Mina Dadgar, founder of Equity Education Solutions, a university partner organization, said that while some qualitative research has focused on the role of faculty and universities in student success, there is little quantitative research. It is said that it has not been done yet. Instead, researchers are focusing on other factors when it comes to post-secondary courses, such as student preparation and demographics, she says.
a study A report released by the Dadgar organization in September examined the experiences of 22,827 students at four California community colleges from 2020 to 2022. This report adds to the empirical evidence that mathematics instructors’ grading and assessment practices are the most important factor influencing whether students pass or fail these courses.
The report also recommends providing students with more opportunities to improve, providing customized feedback, ensuring fair consideration is provided, and fostering a sense of belonging for students. , recommends instructional practices that the authors argue can reduce racial disparities in outcomes in gateway mathematics courses.
Susan Bickerstaff, a senior researcher at the Center for Community College Research, said there is a sense among math teachers that teaching gateway classes is becoming increasingly difficult. Some faculty report that students who take these courses have a more diverse mathematics experience.
Ten years ago, some students in these courses may not have even attended a university mathematics course in the first place. But she says a lot of work has been done to ensure fewer students are turned away from college math and into prerequisite developmental courses.
However, Bickerstaff argues that the number of students who have access to university-level mathematics has expanded. So any challenges that come with this are good ones to have, she said, and the need to provide more support for quality education by having more diverse students in certain classes. It has also been pointed out that it increases sexuality.
lost in translation
Some of the hurdles students face in mathematics are not directly related to understanding the content.
Student motivation, a sense of belonging and self-efficacy are important, Bickerstaff says. But she added that providing teachers with the tools is important because they need to find ways to support it in the context of mathematics.
Part of the challenge, she says, is to provide teachers with very concrete examples to guide them in implementing better teaching principles.
For instructors like Spoon, that means moving from research insights to classroom activities. So far, Spoon reports that changes are picking up steam. She says her students already seem to be improving, but she plans to continue looking for improvements.
However, the experimental process is not simple.
Like Spoon, Rachel Polakoski, mathematics department co-chair at Cuyamaca College, has made some changes and now supports a new approach to instruction and assessment.
But it was painful when she first realized that the way she had been doing things might be holding some students away from their desired careers. She went through her mourning period, she says. She reflected on her past students, who she believes have unintentionally interfered with her life.
When an instructor learns that he or she may have caused hardship, that’s a lot to take. “It hurts to hear that I caused harm,” Polakoski says.
Ultimately, she argues, therefore, these insights need to be carefully expressed to teachers.
