ORMATYC/WAMATYC presentation slides

Here are the slides for my talk at at the joint ORMATYC/WAMATYC conference.

Math Lit & Pathways: 5 yrs later ORMATYC 2016 from kathleenalmy

ORMATYC/WAMATYC next week

Are you going to the combined ORMATYC/WAMATYC meeting next week? If so, I'm doing a talk on lessons learned from 5 years of teaching Math Lit. The session is from 2:45 to 3:45 pm on Friday April 22. I hope to see you there.

Math Lit & Pathways: 5 Years Later slides

Here is the presentation I gave today on how things have changed and what we've learned after teaching the pathways course Math Lit for 5 years.

Math Lit & Pathways: 5 Years Later from kathleenalmy

Math Literacy talk slides from National Math Summit

Below are the slides I used today in the panel discussion I was a part of. We use the text, Math Lit, that I've written with my co-author, Heather Foes. It is published by Pearson.

Math literacy for summit 2016 from kathleenalmy

This the handout I provided today.

Mlcs overview handout (2 pages) updated from kathleenalmy

Upcoming talks on Math Lit and pathways

I'll be doing three talks between this week and next week. If you're going to ICTCM, the National Math Summit, and/or NADE, please join us.

ICTCM - Friday March 11

NOTE: The following ICTCM session is offered in person or virtually for attendees.

Math Lit & Pathways: 5 Years Later

3:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Kathleen Almy, Rock Valley College

Heather Foes, Rock Valley College

Pathways courses have evolved in the 5 years since their inception. In this session, we’ll share the lessons we’ve learned in our Math Lit course as well as how pathways are changing developmental math nationwide.

National Mathematics Summit - Wed March 16

Implementing Course Redesigns: Curriculum Options and Measuring Effect

9:15 – 10:20 Grand Ballroom E

Linda Zientek, Kathleen Almy, Jennifer Dorsey, Nancy Stano, and Paula Wilhite

This presentation will focus on the implementation of several course redesigns, with a focus on curriculum redesigns that focus on real-world concepts and collaborative learning. The importance of measuring effects on student performance and non-cognitive factors will be discussed. 

NADE - Thursday March 17

Math Lit & Pathways: 5 Years Later

7:00 - 7:50 am

Kathleen Almy, Rock Valley College

Pathways courses have evolved in the 5 years since their inception. In this session, we’ll share the lessons we’ve learned in our Math Lit course as well as how pathways are changing developmental math nationwide.

Math Lit's approach to homework: MML and more

Our goal with the Math Lit book and course is to get students to be competent problem solvers who are college ready. To get there, we wrote and sequenced problems and activities designed with that end goal in mind. But to solidify concepts, students need to practice. Heather and I had used MyMathLab for years and loved it, but knew it was best suited to skill type exercises. We wanted students to do more than that in the Math Lit course, so we created the conceptual homework in the book. It provides students with much more involved problems, not exercises. Those problems require a student to apply what they've learned in the section. But they can't do that if they don't have the base level skills. That's where MyMathLab comes in.

The two types of homework work together and were designed as such. The MyMathLab homework wasn't an afterthought or haphazardly chosen. Like the text, much thought and care went into its development so that the goals of the course could be met. It's certainly a different approach to homework but the main thing is it works. Students develop skill understanding and then extend that understanding by being challenged with more involved problems. Unlike most commercial math literacy texts, the approach we use is effective. We have seen students year after year progress in their understanding and succeed in the subsequent college level courses.

Here are some examples:

For students to be able to solve a problem like this...

...they must have skills in exponents rules.

For students to be able to solve a problem like this...

...they must have skills in the distance formula and Pythagorean theorem.

For students to be able to solve a problem like this...

...they must have skills in writing equations of lines.

Math Lit 2e sampler available!

If you would like to know more about the second edition of Math Lit, please check out the sampler below. It has an overview of the book, a list of some of the changes that have been made, an updated table of contents, and a sample section. We have made many improvements to this edition based on the feedback we got from users. In short, we listened and have worked to create a book that is simpler to use, more flexible, and more functional. Nearly every section in the first edition is included but improved, streamlined, and updated. There are also new topics, new problems, new focus problems, and new sections. If you're teaching a 4 credit hour course, the text is very easy to customize to work for your course. If you want to teach the course online, we've made that possible too. If you want to do some group work, no group work, or all group work, those options are also available.

The MyMathLab course will have many additions as well including additional focus problem packages, printable homework sets so that pages don't have to be taken out of the book, answers to book homework posted to MyMathLab instead of the text so instructors can hide them or make them available, more conceptual questions, many more videos, and online appendices to support students who need prerequisite content or intermediate algebra bridge material.

The new edition will be out in June and the MyMathLab course will be available some time this summer so that the text can be used this fall.

NOTE: The sample section shown is from the annotated instructor's edition. Blue annotated answers and instructor notes are included.