Mike Jenck, Matt Lewis, Ben Mayo
Yakima Valley Community College


Rate of degree/certificate completion for students
placement testing into developmental math is
extremely low.
The sequence of developmental courses is very
long.

At YVCC a student placing at the lowest math level will
progress through one of the following sequences to get to
the 100-level:
 Math 49 – Math 50 – Math 75 – Math 85 – Math 95
 Math 49 – Math 50 – Math 75 – Math 84 – Math 91 – Math 94

Students who pass our developmental courses
do not necessarily have the skills to be
successful in subsequent courses.

As an example, consider the following test grades for
an arithmetic student:
 Whole Numbers Exam: 92%
 Integers Exam: 90%
 Fractions Exam: 45%
 Decimal Exam: 85%
 Final Exam: 74%
 Grade: C


A few department members showed interest in
pursuing alternate ways of moving students
through our developmental curriculum.
There would be two main changes to the
traditional model.
Students move through the material at their own pace,
rather than at the instructor’s.
 Students must show mastery on a topic before being
allowed to move on.


Our focus was initially on changing the delivery of
Math 49 (Number Sense), Math 50 (Arithmetic),
and Math 75 (Pre-algebra).

The highly motivated student has the ability to
accelerate.

A student may progress through up to three of our
developmental classes in one quarter, and only pay
for the highest class he or she completes.
 Example: A student completing Math 49 and Math 50
in one quarter will only pay for Math 50.
 In the winter 16% of our students who began in Math
49 were able to also pass Math 50 in the same quarter.
 One student was able to complete the material for Math
49, Math 50, and Math 75 in the same quarter.

Students may quickly show mastery over
topics they know, leaving more time for topics
they struggle with.


Example: Many successful students took only a week
to complete their work in whole numbers, and then
took up to 5 weeks on fractions.
Students who struggle on foundational topics
(i.e. whole numbers) are not forced to go to the
next topic after they fail a test.



Students meet 5 hours per week in a large
computer classroom.
The class capacity is 64 with two instructors per
class.
Student learning is achieved…
through the text-book for the class.
 through videos from the Internet vetted by department
members.
 through one-on-one interaction between the instructors
and students.
 through mini-lectures given to groups of students who
are in the same place in the material.


Assessment of student progress is done in three
ways:

Section Diagnostics
 A 10-15 question diagnostic quiz must be passed with at least
80% accuracy to complete a section.

Subsection Mini-Quizzes
 Students may try to get 100% on 2-3 question mini-quizzes
within subsections to “test out” of a particular problem type.

Subsection Practices
 When a mini-quiz for a subsection is not passed, students
complete practice assignments. Students must pass with 100%
accuracy but have unlimited attempts on each problem.
However, the numbers involved in the problem change with
each attempt.

At the end of each chapter students must take a
test.




The test is completed on the computer, but the
students must show all of their work on a designated
test form.
Students must complete the tests with 75% accuracy
to move on.
When a student earns a raw score less than 75%, the
test is graded for partial credit.
When a test is attempted and not passed, an item
analysis is conducted to determine which sections of
that chapter need to be reset for the student.

We use WAMAP (Washington Mathematics
Assessment and Placement) as the platform for
the class.



WAMAP allows us to write our own assessment
questions or use problems already created by other
instructors who use WAMAP.
WAMAP is free for the students and for the school.
We are able to easily share with others what we have
created on WAMAP.

We are currently offering two courses, Math
049C and Math 050C.


Both of these classes meet at the same time, in the
same classroom.
Math 049C is for students who place into our Adult
Basic Education program in math, but above this
level in writing.
 To pass Math 049C, a student must complete the
curriculum on whole numbers and integers, as well as
pass four timed skills tests.

Math 050C is for students who have passed Math
049C.
 To pass Math 050C, a student must complete the
curriculum on fractions and decimals, as well as pass a
final exam over all arithmetic material.

At this point, all students who place above
adult basic education in math must take our
lecture arithmetic course.


In the fall, we will be conducting an arithmetic class
taught in a self-paced mode to these students so we
can compare short-term and long-term success rates
as compared with our lecture classes.
We do not have immediate plans to implement
this modality for our pre-algebra courses, but
we allow students who accelerate through the
arithmetic material to attempt to pass prealgebra by working through what we have
created for that material on WAMAP.


Mini-lectures are an essential part of a selfpaced class.
Students need as much well-defined structure
as we can give them in this model.



Students are required to complete time-logs to
record how much time they are spending working
on math outside of class.
Students are given benchmark schedules to help
keep them at a pace that will lead to success.
Strict attendance rules must be put in place to
discourage absenteeism.