ERIC Number: ED672636
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2021-May
Pages: 26
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Solving for Equity: Design and Implementation of New Postsecondary Math Pathways
Mina Dadgar; Dina Buck; Pamela Burdman
Just Equations
Mathematics education has been a distinct source of inequity in students' educational journeys. The way mathematics is taught and tested can determine students' chances of completing high school, entering the college of their choice, and earning a degree in a field that interests them. Black, Latinx, and other marginalized students are most likely to be filtered out of opportunities due to policies such as tracking (Burdman, 2018; Daro & Asturias, 2019). Postsecondary mathematics pathway reforms have the potential to reduce or eliminate racial stratification, but evidence to date suggests that they haven't consistently done so (Brathwaite et al., 2020). Incorporating new strategies into the design and delivery of these reforms will be essential to their effectiveness in achieving equity goals. This brief investigates ways of doing so. The work to modernize postsecondary math requirements began more than a decade ago, with a move toward diversified math pathways that align with students' academic and career interests, instead of the conventional, one-size-fits-all pathway to Calculus. Traditionally, general-education math courses focused on preparing students for Calculus, regardless of whether they were pursuing a field that required Calculus. This practice deprived many students of the quantitative skills that would be relevant to their lives and academic pursuits, while simultaneously weeding significant proportions of students out of college altogether. Increasingly, colleges and universities are offering students alternate pathways for meeting math requirements, through courses such as Statistics, Data Science, and Quantitative Reasoning, in which students can gain competencies related to their majors (Burdman, 2015a; Burdman et al., 2018; Charles A. Dana Center, 2019a and 2020). For more than a decade, leading mathematics associations have encouraged these moves to align students' math pathways with their fields of study (Burdman et al., 2018). They have also called for students to have early exposure to statistics, modeling, and computation, skills employers say need more emphasis. "The largest discrepancies between need and perceived availability were seen for solving real-world math problems, taking and interpreting measurements, and calculating basic statistics," noted the West Virginia Department of Education about a 2019 employer survey (West Virginia Department of Education, 2019). In the past several years, the math-reform efforts have evolved to include a movement against traditional remedial courses and in favor of corequisite courses and other just-in-time strategies that streamline students' pathways to degrees. Remedial prerequisites, such as intermediate algebra, divert students from college-level math courses and discourage them from pursuing postsecondary degrees and credentials (Xu & Dadgar, 2017; Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2012; Boatman & Long, 2018). States and institutions that have implemented corequisite courses--which provide additional support to students while enrolled in college-level math courses--have demonstrated that these approaches can lead to improved student outcomes (Tennessee Board of Regents, 2016; Ran & Lin, 2019; Logue et al., 2019; Mejia et al., 2020).
Descriptors: College Mathematics, Educational Change, Mathematics Instruction, Equal Education, Educational Principles, Relevance (Education), Curriculum Design, Sense of Belonging, College Students, Disproportionate Representation, Minority Group Students, Remedial Mathematics, Self Concept
Just Equations. 678 13th Street, Oakland, CA 94612. Tel: 510-394-4858; e-mail: info@justequations.org; Web site: https://justequations.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: Just Equations
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A