Case Studies
Reading Area Community College
Textbook in Use
Prealgebra and Intermediate Algebra, 2e, Elayn Martin-Gay
Key Take-Away
By wrapping underprepared math students in support and encouraging them to be accountable for their learning, RACC helps students quickly and successfully catch up with their peers—and stay in school.
Course Implementation
Course Design
Mathematics Review is an optional, self-paced, online program designed to prepare students for Prealgebra. Reading Area Community College (RACC) offers the program at no charge as part of its commitment to respond to the needs of its students and the community.
Students remain in Mathematics Review until they self-select to take the MyMathLab final and move to Prealgebra. Students are encouraged to complete all course assignments and assessments. Proctors screen those wishing to take the final by advising those whose preparation is not complete or of a high enough quality to be successful that more practice would be of benefit. Students obtain extra help by e-mailing the facilitator or visiting the math lab.
Assessments
| 20 | Homework Assignments |
| 19 | Quizzes |
| 4 | Practice Tests |
| 1 | Final Exam |
Students, who score 70 percent or more on their final exam may move into Prealgebra.
Use of MyMathLab
One-hundred percent of the program content is presented in MyMathLab. Homework sections cover one topic at a time and each is followed by a short quiz. Practice tests cover groups of topics and contain more problems than the quizzes. A password-protected, final exam becomes available to students once they have completed the second to the last learning module. To ensure test security, final exams are taken in an on-campus math computer lab.
Question pooling enables retakes of quizzes, practice tests, and the final exam without repetition of questions.
Instructors use MyMathLab’s Gradebook feature to manage large numbers of students—to keep track of who is being active, find out who is taking the final exam, and see who would benefit from e-mail intervention.
Results and Data
Prior to redesign with MyMathLab, of those students who passed Mathematics Review, 31 percent failed the subsequent course, Prealgebra. The 69 percent who did pass Prealgebra earned an average grade of 2.3 out of 4.0. The first year with the new format showed significant improvement: of the students who passed the Mathematics Review final and enrolled in Prealgebra, 94 percent passed the course with an average grade of 3.26.
Follow-up with summer 2009 students shows continued progress. Twenty of the 21 summer students enrolled in at least one subsequent math course. Thirteen of the 15 who passed Prealgebra enrolled in the subsequent developmental math course for their sequence.
Results for the fall 2009 students are equally inspiring. Of the 91 percent of students (42 ) who took the final exam and passed, 33 are currently enrolled in Prealgebra; 5 have completed or tested out of Prealgebra. Of those five, four are enrolled in the subsequent developmental math course for their sequence.
| Enrolled in Mathematics Review | Took Final | Passed Final | Average Passing Score | Tested Out of Prealgebra | Enrolled in Prealgebra | Passed Prealgebra with an A, B, or C | Withdrew from Prealgebra | |
| Summer 2009 | 87 | 21 | 21 | 86.1 | - | 16 | 15 | 1 |
| Fall 2009 | 159 | 46 | 42 | 86.1 | 5 | 33 | (Not yet available) | - |
Table 1. Success Rates of MyMathLab-Enabled Mathematics Review and Its Subsequent Course, Prealgebra, Summer and Fall 2009
The Student Experience
Students who are actively engaged in self-paced, online learning develop a sense of accountability for their learning. Supported by the tools in MyMathLab, they quickly and easily discover what they need help with and what they already know. “RACC has open enrollment, which means we see a wide range of abilities and life circumstances,” says Barbara Stoner, cocoordinator of developmental math. “MyMathLab helps the entire continuum of students appropriately scale their goals and sets them up for success.”
Students confirm the positive impact of MyMathLab.
- “The [MyMathLab] online course was very helpful. It taught me all the things I had forgotten from high school 10 years ago. I’m now in Prealgebra and earning an A. I don’t think it would have been possible without the Mathematics Review program. I definitely recommend it to all students!”
- “Don’t change a thing. This [MyMathLab] program prepared me on things I forgot from high school.”
- “Math was my toughest subject throughout middle and high school. MyMathLab definitely helped prepare me for [Prealgebra]—it refreshed my memory of things that I had forgotten, and it taught me a lot of new things. I’ve learned so much from MyMathLab, I plan to continue using it. It works for me!”
Conclusions
By wrapping Mathematics Review students in support— including MyMathLab’s Ask My Instructor feature, the math tutoring lab, and instructor office hours—RACC sends its students a powerful message: you are not alone. Initial results comparing Mathematics Review before and after redesign with MyMathLab indicate that it works: students are succeeding in ways they never did before and in classes beyond the redesigned review program.
Stoner points to a clear connection between skill mastery and use of MyMathLab. “The students who failed the Mathematics Review final exam in fall 2009 had not completed all of the recommended MyMathLab program modules,” she says. “Two of those students returned after completing the modules and passed the exam.”
As of this report, more than 100 students are currently enrolled in the Mathematics Review program. As placement testing resumes for fall 2010, Stoner expects the demand for the program to continue.
Experience with 2009 students indicated a need to further refine program critieria. RACC is now specifically targeting students who have already obtained high school diplomas or GEDs. Other students are referred to the college’s free GED program.
Future plans include the possibility of augmenting this course redesign with a grant from the National Center for Academic Transformation to modularize all of the college’s developmental mathematics courses.
Reading Area Community College
| Product Used: | MyMathLab |
| Course Name: | Mathematics Review |
| Credit Hours: | 0 |
"Using MyMathLab [in Mathematics Review] helped me smoothly transition into my next math class, which I knew would be difficult. When I needed to review basic skills, I could easily navigate to the correct section and watch the step-by-step video explanation."
