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Texas Woman's University

The Fundamentals of Algebra course provides developmental math students with needed support in mathematical building blocks and prepares them for college-level mathematics courses. MyMathLab was first implemented in the course in fall 2008 for homework and practice tutorials. Due to significantly increased student gains, including impressively high pass rates and low fail rates, in fall 2009 the program’s use was expanded to include homework, chapter tests, remediation, and the final exam. Students are required to use MyMathLab outside of class in addition to meeting in the math lab a minimum of one hour a week. For spring 2010, the university employed MyMathLab’s Coordinator Course function to standardize delivery of the course and thereby facilitate consistency of course content and quick comparisons between assessments among the course’s sections.

Assistant Professor Christina Gawlik is pleased with the consistently high pass rates achieved with MyMathLab: an average of 75 percent from fall 2008 through spring 2010. The average failure rate is equally inspiring, at an average of 25 percent over the same two academic years.

Gawlik attributes the success of the course to MyMathLab’s interactive features. “Students enjoy the help options,” she says. “Assignments are easily accessible and include numerous online tools for intervention and remediation. When students are working on their own, they can find help via videos and tutorials, the eBook, and the Ask My Instructor feature. Perhaps most important, students can rework similar homework problems until they obtain a correct answer, which not only offers them the opportunity to earn 100 percent on every homework assignment but also promotes increased time on task—a proven best practice.”

—Submitted by Christina Gawlik, Ph.D., Assistant Professor