Innovations in MTH 100E
Kristen Bieda and Raven McCrory, Teacher Education
Steven Wolf, Post-Doc in CREATE for STEM
Funded by the LPF Endowment through the CREATE for
STEM Institute
Personnel
 Pavel Sikorskii, Julie Cioni, Ron Powers,
Mathematics faculty support
 Joanne Philhower, Jamie Wernet, Frances Harper,
TE Teaching Assistants
 Jen Nimtz & Kenneth Bradfield, Graduate
Research Assistants
 Funded by the LPF Endowment through CREATE
for STEM and by a TUES grant from NSF
Why this project?
Math
Perspective
Remedial math at MSU: over 1000
students per year (Freshman class of 7800)
High failure rates: 15-25% drop or fail
Another 10-20% below 2.0
Prerequisite for College Algebra
Essential for later success in STEM-related
fields
Why this project?
Teacher
Education
Perspective
Future math teachers need realistic
teaching experiences
Microteaching Lab has been problematic
Win-Win
For Math
For TE
What is MTH 100E?
A non-credit, on-campus enrichment seminar
(Intermediate Algebra Workshop) that meets twice
a week for two hours a session
Open to students taking MTH 1825, an online
developmental math course using ALEKS
~ 10 sections per semester. Enrollment in most
sections capped at 20.
Most taught by undergraduate LAs (some of who
are students taking TE secondary math ed
coursework).
Who takes MTH 100E?
Primarily freshman
Those who do not place into MTH 103 or
higher based on their placement exam score
Self-selected
Students in the College Admissions
Achievement Program (CAAP) or College
Assistance Migrant Program Scholars
Initiative (CAMP)
Who takes MTH 100E?
Approximately 40% are minorities by race
Approximately 15% intend to pursue
STEM majors (based on 2012 data)
Some future mathematics teachers
What are the ongoing challenges
in teaching MTH 100E?
Reducing failures and drops in MTH1825
from ~30%
Students’ attitudes about math and math
courses (Larnell, 2010)
Students’ prior knowledge and math
coursework experience varies widely in 100E
Disparities in achievement levels and ALEKS
performance
Fall 2012 Pilot Intervention
MTH 100E
Tuesdays
MTH 100E
Thursdays
Fall 2012 Pilot Intervention
TE 407
student
instructors
Coaching
by GAs
MTH 100E
Tuesdays
InquiryOriented
Curriculum
& Group
Work
Fall 2012 Pilot Intervention
MTH 100E
Tuesdays
MTH 100E
Thursdays
Secondary Mathematics Majors as
Instructors
TE 407 is a 5 credit course that includes a microteaching lab
experience
Lab is supervised by graduate TAs who are former secondary
mathematics teachers and mathematics education graduate students
Beginning in 3rd week of semester, pairs of TE 407 students took
responsibility to plan and enact instruction under supervision of TAs
Fellow TE 407 peers observed instruction and participated in a postlesson discussion with instructors after TE 100E class
Inquiry-oriented curriculum
MTH 100E students need to develop more
than just procedural knowledge. Tasks in
lessons were designed to develop conceptual
understanding, problem solving skills, and
reasoning.
Example 1: Simplifying Rational
Expressions
Key Idea 1: Understanding the structure of rational
expressions
i.e. that
3
x + 3 and
4x + 7
x 2 + 5x - 6
whole into different size parts
are portioning a
Example 1: Simplifying Rational
Expressions
Key Idea 1: Understanding the structure of rational
expressions
i.e. that
3
4x + 7
x + 3 and x 2 + 5x - 6
are portioning a
whole into different size parts
Key Idea 2: Understanding the process/object
distinction
i.e. x + 3 describes a process AND is an object
Example 1: Simplifying Rational
Expressions
Key Idea 1: Understanding the structure of rational expressions
3
i.e. that
x + 3 and
4x + 7
are portioning a whole into
x 2 + 5x - 6
different size parts
Key Idea 2: Understanding the process/object distinction
i.e. x + 3 describes a process AND is an object
Key Idea 3: Understanding that simplifying fractions and
rational expressions involves applying the multiplicative
identity
i.e. that x * 1 = x for all real numbers x.
The Lesson on Simplifying
Rational Expressions (from CPM curriculum
10.1.1)
Part I: Have students consider what they know
about the number 1.
Part II: Have students consider the claim that
anything divided by itself equals 1. Students are
asked to generate their own algebraic fractions
that equal 1.
Part III: Students are asked to simplify
4x
4+ x
and
x
x
Part IV: Students are asked to use what they
know about the number 1 to simplify some given
rational expressions
Reflections from 100E Students
“This is my favorite class this semester.”
Reflections from 100E Students
“This is my favorite class this semester.”
“I found the equations surprisingly easy to
create when usually it’s fairly difficult for
me.”
Reflections from 100E Students
“This is my favorite class this semester.”
“I found the equations surprisingly easy to
create when usually it’s fairly difficult for
me.”
“ This class wasn’t helpful. It’s more for
math majors who want to deeply
understand math. Not people who just
want to know how to solve the problem.”
Reflections from TE 407 students
“I really enjoy the fact that we have a
micro-teaching lab, because being able to
connect what we've talked about in
lecture and put it to use in the classroom
as been really neat to see.”
Reflections from TE 407 students
"The micro teaching lab observation and
discussions about them have helped me
change my ways of thinking what makes
a ‘good’ teacher. How you can question
students to help lead them to the answer
without being too direct. It is still going to
take time before it becomes second
nature but it has definitely had an impact.”
Reflections from TE 407 students
“ I'd say the 5pm meetings on Tuesdays really
help us to unravel all the different aspects of
what is happening in the MTL…. these
meetings help clear up what and why we did, if
it worked, and what we could do differently. I
think the transparency it brings allows us to
better accept changing of our ‘image’ of
teaching from ‘telling’ to ‘student-based
learning’.”
What data do we have?
Course data:
ALEKS (homework, assessments, time
on task)
Exams (final and interim)
Math Placement Exam scores
MTH103 College Algebra enrollment and
grades
MTH 100E and PSTs written reflections
2012 Results Summary
 100E students start out behind other 1825
students
 100E students end up even with or ahead of other
1825 students on the various measures
 100E Intervention students have the best
performance
 These results carry over into MTH103 College
Algebra
Report available:
www.msu.edu/~mccrory/TEAMProject.html
2012 MTH1825 Study Population
 Only students in 1825 online sections
 Excludes Lyman Briggs and DREW students
 Group 1: 1825 only: 701 students
 Group 2: 100E non-intervention sections: 71
students
 Group 3: 100E intervention sections: 34 students
 Total: 806 students
2012 MTH1825 Study Population
 Out of 806 students in the study, 100 unique
majors in 15 colleges. The top three, and two
others especially relevant to CREATE,
College
Number
Percent of total
Social Science
161
20.0
Business
133
16.5
Natural Science
82
10.2
Education
56
6.9
Engineering
37
4.6
100E students start out behind
• Scores for 100E (Groups 2 & 3 together)
are significantly lower than those for
Group 1 (1825 only)
• Statistically, Groups 2 & 3 are equivalent
on these measures
Comparative final results
• Group 3 (intervention) scored higher on
both measures: Final exam and ALEKS
Post.
• Not statistically significant, but practically,
predicts a higher grade in College Algebra
by half a grade point.
Withdraw, Fail, D
 Group 3 had lowest rate of
failure/D
 Group 3 had NO students
who apparently dropped
the course (Groups 1 and
2 had 7% and 3%
respectively)
 Group 3 had NO students
with zero on both the final
exam and final grade
(Groups 1 & 2 each had
1%)
% zero final grade
% <2.0
Enrollment & performance in
College Algebra
Group 3:
 Higher percentage enrollment
 Comparable % with 2.0 or higher
 But getting 2.0 is not good enough…
Challenges
 Attitudes and beliefs data – low response rate
 SOLUTION: homework credit for completing the surveys
this year
 Assessment not aligned with project curriculum
 Non-normality of data restricts statistics that can
be used
 Sample size issues
 Staffing limitations
 Maximum of 20 – 30 future mathematics teachers each
year
 Model requires an additional TE teaching assistant AND
a ¼ course equivalent for a TE faculty member.
Current work
Second round of implementation Fall 2013
Writing items to assess mathematical
proficiency
Developing models to predict
 1825 outcomes
 103 (College Algebra) outcomes
Collecting longitudinal data about the 2012
cohort to follow their progress at MSU (in
all three groups)
2013 Model
TA
1
MTH 100E
Sect. 76
MTH 100E
Sect. 76
Tuesdays
Thursdays
TE 407 lab A
TE 407 lab B
TA
2
Important to figure out why not.
Are students able to game the
system? Is ALEKS not teaching
what is being tested?
Take home messages
Intervention works for MTH100E students
100E is important
Final Exam and ALEKS assessment are
NOT highly correlated
None of this is good enough:
Drop/fail rates are MUCH too high
We still have a lot of work to do…
Better preparing graduate TAs to
support inquiry-oriented instruction
Finding the “sweet spot” of scaffolding
and curriculum support for TE 407
student instructors
Scale up to a larger corps of Learning
Assistants who implement the
curriculum
Thank you!
Report available:
www.msu.edu/~mccrory/TEAMProject.html