Transition Mathematics Project

1. Create a standardized test-teaching, with “normed” outcomes. Come up with a viable hypothesis from elements of questions that come forth.
2. Student reported elements to stay in program. What assets, attitudes, behaviors, Student attributes. Cancel and coordinate separate outcomes ABE/Dev Ed math
3. DO: faculty surveys, student surveys, through line concepts, one program instead of three, access to professional development, bank of lessons, develop data gathering information.
4. Teacher collecting data, no show, don’t do that, tell adjuncts
5. Info gathering – passing rates, faculty, students, and student attributes, teacher behavior, ideas. Where are our students having trouble succeeding?
6. Classroom laboratory, classroom observing/sharing, help with problem solving in teaching practice.
7. Communicating what are we supposed to be teaching, collaborate? Create non-intimidating culture for Spokane Falls, multi-quarter contracts, letters vouching for value of experiment.
8. Research questions; what student behaviors are associated with success? What do our students do to study? What can a faculty member do to help students learn?

everett community college

1. How does our one-and-one student’s progress to transfer level compare to non-ono-and-one developmental math students?
2. How do we identify important cohorts at our school?
3. Use electronic “clicker” technology to gather data regarding student understanding of a few key concepts over the course of a quarter.
4. What are some successful intervention techniques? What are they most successful?
5. On self-efficacy - to succeed in future math, how is self-efficacy affected (differently) by the following;
   Taking one quarter to pass MLC 70 or taking two quarters to pass MLC 70?
6. Can we tap: Perceptions of likelihood of success and confidence built as a consequence of a single mastery of skill?
7. Asking students – where will you be in one year (class or institution)?  Are students aware of what transfer requirements exist?
8. What kind of value is there in comparison of math lab modular skill mastery and regular course mastery? On comparing student who masters skills in one quarter compared to the one that takes two quarters?

highline community college

1. Drill and kill as support versus the major issue. This is a shift. How does faculty respond? Can we take emphasis off drill and kill and shift emphasis to application?
2. How do we get faculty to engage in active learning?
3. Idea of study skill piece; Does teaching study and organizational skill impact student learning? Which strategies seem most effective?
4. What is the level of compliance (“buy in”) among faculty?
5. What do students retain about the course content or otherwise?
6. What skills and knowledge (life) do students bring to class?
7. What does faculty need so they are willing to continue to investigate or pursue further rather than discard it?
8. Focus on shifts in participating faculty. What beliefs do faculty hold about student learning or potential?
9. Role of textbook; Hand them the book, but ours is different. What does faculty need to persist in a behavior? How can we get faculty to be vulnerable and willing to learn?
10. Are students more satisfied? When we omit skills, does it impact college-level math success? What algebra skills are required for statistics?
11. Faculty training questions; what is our purpose? What is our philosophy? Bring faculty into the fold. We have been habituated but now we’ve moved outside the box; Philosophy of pre-college or purpose.
12. How do you gauge whether students are buying into philosophy or methods?
13. How do we measure retention of knowledge and what should we expect them to retain (grain size)?
14. Can we teach perseverance? Do using complex tables in instruction lead to better retention?
15. Have faculty bought in? What are the barriers? Can instructors re-conceptualize course purpose?
16. How do you achieve compliance, buy in of majority faculty and part-faculty? Does faculty understand importance of student attributes?
17. What knowledge is retained in mathematics? How can or do we promote retention and transfer of math knowledge?
18. What practices and policies lead to engagement and professional development of part-time faculty?

lower columbia college

1. What resources are most useful to students?
2. How much does it cost for students to reach college-level math readiness?
3. How long do students stay in pre-college math? How many repeated attempts required before passing?
4. Are students overwhelmed by the pacing of the course?
5. Are students more successful in the next-in-sequence course?
6. At what point in the sequence do students fail (topic or time)?
7. How can we get students to use the resources we make available?

north seattle community college

1. What percentage of students who start in 098, 097, 085, 084, 081 and make it through Q (ECON/BUS/PHIL)? STEM (which ones?)
2. Research questions – Is student completion of math courses improved with this proposal? Is student retention of math courses improved with this proposal?
3. Qualitative questions: faculty reflection on the students grasping of the concepts that we focus on, faculty interviews, student interviews, faculty reflecting on the student interviews.
4. What are student’s perspectives on contextualized math (are they excited)? Student interviews, is it a problem that we don’t have baseline interviews?
5. What deficiencies place a student in 084, 085, 097, and 098? How do we teach to those deficiencies specifically? When do we…..?
6. Will there be a better correlation between pre-assessment and student success – Compass, pre-assessment?
7. Is student success dependent on how they do on standard pre-assessment? Can student success be predicted by how they do on standard pre-assessment?

northwest indian college

1. Can we come up with problems that are structured for the students to work on on their own? Would changing classroom dynamic affect student understanding? Hypothesis: yes, depending on the teacher.
2. Can you remove traditionally significant parts of curriculum from Dev-Ed math and not negatively impact college level math success? Hypothesis: yes, depending on the teacher.
3. For students who “drift-off” after 2,3,4…weeks in the quarter, are the reasons classroom related or not? Hypothesis: yes, a myriad of reasons.
4. After 50 years of research, does the teacher make the difference in the classroom of student success?

spokane falls community college

1. Has our focus on pre-class preparation changed student attitude toward learning math (Focus group/survey)
2. Is our work changing our own classroom practice? Our own attitudes towards teaching? Our own attitudes toward how students learn? How? (Focus group/survey)
3. Have students met the standards of a particular CALO? One period-long task scored by rubric – by group (possibly a relative measure, mastery not necessarily the goal) carefully defines success.
4. Do students see the value of using math outside of math class? Maybe ask at the end of the quarter (students – college level)
5. What is the “acceptable” level of achievement? Novice, proficient, expert, advanced?
6. Has our focus on pre-class preparation changed student behavior? (Focus group/survey)
7. Can students proficiently complete some identified procedural skills? Possibly use items from long-used common 99 final? Some common items for final-procedural. Identify common misconceptions.
8. Are students more confident in their own abilities to independently approach mathematics?
9. Can students deal well with multiple representations of problems? Is it making a difference? When does the difference show up (98, 141)?
10. Can we design a clear, consistent plan that results in a useable meaningful report?
11. Has our re-design of our developmental math placement instrument worked?  Is it a good predictor of success?
12. What is our theory of learning? Do we share the same one? Do we have to?

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