The data is what it is...

Every now and then, you think something should be pretty obviously true, but it turns out to be false... or at least not entirely true. Consider the following supposition:

Students who take their remedial math class and first college-level math classes in consecutive semesters are more likely to pass the college-level class than those who take a break between the two.

On the face of it, it's seems arguably plausible and pretty simple. And when you look at the numbers, it turns out to be true. From the data available, we found that 52% of students pass when there is a break in between and 62% of students pass when there isn't. This is a 10% difference and a relative 19% increase.

However, when you take a closer look at the data, a surprising trend arises. For the weaker students (B- to C- students), the pass rate is approximately the same regardless of whether they took the classes sequentially! The data set got a bit small for this part of the analysis, with less than 100 students, but the signs point to something lurking underneath the surface that has not yet been identified.

The mystery to understand why this is the case begins...

Looking ahead

I went to my first meeting yesterday. The discussion addressed something that I was not really aware of as an "outsider" to the department. One of the major problems of the camus is that students are not exiting with as high a level of basic mathematical competency as they would like. I didn't say much during the meeting, but there were a few things which seemed very reasonable approaches to the problem

• No gaps between math classes: Many students (for whatever reason) choose to take several semesters off between their math classes. Intuitively, this seems entirely counter-productive because math, like any other skill/knowledge, gets lost with lack of use. It seems unclear whether it is possible to mandate students to take the courses in consecutive semesters, but it is something to be pushed strongly.
  


• Tracking student data: Apparently, the Nevada System of Higher Education is using a very very old program to track their students (an upgrade is in the process, but it's a number of years off before completion). This means that while there is lots of anecdotal information to support various positions, it is hard to produce the hard evidence required to back it up. Apparently, some of the faculty figured out how to access the information and get the data they want out of it, so there's an effort to get this information and process it so see if the data supports the claims.
  


• Online class limitations: Apparently, there is an effort to make a lot of classes available online. There's even an effort to have entirely online degrees. I have some misgivings about online degrees (quality control, making sure that the name on the application actually corresponds to the person doing the work), but I can see the value of it (in principle). However, the degrees that some people are trying to push include things like physics, biology, and chemistry, which is absolutely absurd. These lab component of the physical sciences is such a large part of the degree that I cannot imagine that the degree would be given much credibility if it were earned entirely online!
  

I guess if I had thought about it for a while that I could have surmised that there would be conversations of this sort in a growing campus. But actually sitting in on such a meeting and hearing the discussion really drives home the feeling of urgency to "get it right" and to provide a quality product for the students, and to put students in the best possible position to succeed. (Of course, success rests on their shoulders, not ours -- if they don't put in the work, they shouldn't earn the degree.)

First class.... sort of.

I filled in for Jason yesterday in his precalculus class. I didn't do much lecturing, but instead spent the whole time answering questions. As a result, it felt a whole lot like teaching section all over again.

I didn't do anything different from teaching sections back at UCSD. I asked them what question from the homework they had problems with, and then I proceeded to explain the concept and solution to them. However, I did notice a distinctive "desire" to learn, mostly from the students who seemed to be non-traditional (I originally typed "older", but I feel that it might be received as derogative to some).

There was one student in particular who struggled with something involving absolute values, but could not find the right question to ask to solve her difficulty. I had to ask her a couple times to try to rephrase her question because I couldn't figure out what was tripping her up. But she politely and patiently persisted in trying to wrap her mind around it until she was finally able to put it together. I've seen that sort of thing happen before at UCSD, but I also remember the student simply say "never mind" after struggling with it for a couple minutes.

I was a bit amused by her response after she put it all together: "Thanks for humoring me." That's a new one. I hope to see more of this from my evening classes this Fall.

Learning Styles

I recently got my login information for the Blackboard Learning System at NSC and have been playing around with the different links that I found there. One of the links is the Index of Learn Styles Questionnaire. I thought it would be interesting to take the quiz and see what the results say about me.

Results for: AW

      ACT                              X                    REF
          11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11
                             <-- -->

     SEN                      X                            INT
          11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11
                             <-- -->

     VIS          X                                        VRB
          11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11
                             <-- -->

     SEQ      X                                            GLO
          11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11
                             <-- -->

The test took only about 5 minutes to complete. It's 44 questions long and I probably spent about 5-7 seconds thinking about each one. How do you read the results? You can read about the four categories on the Learning Styles and Strategies page.

I'm not very surprised by the first one. I tend to learn well in all sorts of settings and I don't really believe I'm strongly biased one way or the other. The second is also a balance that doesn't surprise me, either.

The last two are clearly dramatically skewed. I had initially thought that I would be balanced between visual and verbal, since I tend to be able to hold a lot of auditory information in my head, but after some reflecting I found that the questionnaire is probably right. Memorizing information is not the same as learning. So while I can hold audio in short term memory, it's not information that is being processed in any way. When students ask me questions in section, I tend to have to write down what they say and stare at it before I can see what they're asking.

Seeing that I'm a sequential learner is unsurprising. I've always been better at the "nuts and bolts" operations than trying to see the everything at once. I think this is part of why students tend to like my teaching style: I often break things down into small steps (or sometimes decision trees).

I'm greatly amused by this sort of thing. Perhaps this is an indication that I should really start looking into Math Ed research or at least SoTL research as a scholarly pursuit.