ICYMI: October Reflections

Hello, Community Members,

Here are the October Highlights from our community - in case you missed it:

  • There were a couple of presentations this month that started a discussion.  One was in Nebraska, "Components of Numeracy", and the other was "ANI-PD Institute 1"
  • A question was asked about Problem Posing at Fright Night at Six Flags, this discussion had some great resources for instructors to take back to their classroom.
  • There was an "Unusual Opportunity" presented to us by a fellow moderator, David Rosen.  He discussed a website that is sponsored by IBM and it contains a link to other math resources that are *FREE* to use.  It is worth checking out!

Call to Action:   If you have a particular topic you wish to discuss in this community, something you are struggling with, something you need more resources for, or just support from your fellow math educators I want to encourage you to join in the conversation on the Math and Numeracy COP.  Our community is a place practitioners, advocates, researchers, learners, policymakers, and others discuss mathematics and numeracy issues in adult education, including research and evidence-based practices, instructional strategies, and resources.  The community needs your expertise to create a place that is engaging and a resource for others in the field of adult education.  Let's continue our discussions here!

Sincerely,

Brooke Istas
Math and Numeracy Moderator

Comments

I'm at a community college and we are feeling the trends towards basically abolishing developmental courses in favor of "college level with support."   I was at a webinar last week that was talking about changing the high school paths ... https://justequations.org/   is the website of the folks putting it on.

I'm wondering if this is happening elsewhere and what impact this is having on other branches of "adult ed" -- I'm not sure what we're going to do (and I'm not in the math department - I just support students).   We have *good* developmental courses with better results than most schools (I should look 'em up again, tho' I know they're not that great...) 

Hi Susan,

Your experience is consistent with what is happening at City University of New York (CUNY). The university is moving towards (slowly on some campuses, rapidly in others) co-requisite classes and away from traditional developmental, non-credit classes. The university also decided to do away with placement testing for incoming freshmen. Instead of giving something like the Accuplacer, the college created a proficiency index that will determine probability of success in credit-level courses by looking at high school GPA, SAT scores, Regents scores, and GED/TASC scores. Students will be referred into regular classes, co-requisites, pre-matriculation college transition courses, and remaining developmental classes based on their index scores.

We don't know how the changes will affect adult education and high school equivalency yet. We suspect more students will go directly into credit-bearing courses, with support. We're interested to see what happens this spring when the new proficiency index is put into action.

More information: https://www.cuny.edu/academics/academic-policy/dev-ed-faq/

-Eric