School Information System: More on UW-LaCrosse's Remedial Math Courses

November 17, 2012

More on UW-LaCrosse's Remedial Math Courses

Karen Herzog, via a kind Erich Zellmer email:

A free, widely available online math course being developed by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse could dramatically reduce the need for students to take remedial math when they start college and put them on a faster, less expensive track to graduation, the UW System announced this week.

It also could better position the state to meet the needs of employers who have difficulty finding employees with adequate basic math skills, as the course would be available to people of all ages - literally anyone with an Internet connection.

An increasing number of freshmen in the UW System need remedial math when they start college, according to UW officials. As of 2007 - the latest data available - 21% of UW System freshmen did not have the necessary skills to succeed in college-level math. Among minority students, the percentage is significantly higher (40%).

Nationally, about 25% of high school graduates require remedial math in college.

That puts them at risk of not graduating, or of taking longer to finish a college degree, increasing the cost of their education, UW officials say.

Much more, here, including this: What impact do high school mathematics curricula have on college-level mathematics placement? by James Wollack and Michael fish.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 17, 2012 10:19 AM
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Comments

Reviewing the UW-LaCrosse site, their MOOC pilot with 38 students did raise some scores significantly, but many (perhaps about 10) showed little progress and some experienced lower scores as the course continued.

The score improvements on the assessments for some were quite impressive, but clearly for many the improvements were minimal.

UW-La does state they will need to disaggregate to analyze further, but it is clear from the pilot data the MOOC failed for too many students to argue UW-La has a solution to innumeracy.

Posted by: Larry Winkler at November 17, 2012 3:57 PM