A Two Year College Follow-up:Fostering Faculty Collaboration and Launching a

New Developmental Course

PJ DarcyDutchess Community CollegePoughkeepsie, NY

Dutchess Community College

• Two Year College in the State University of New York Community College system

• A high percentage of students enroll needing developmental Mathematics and English courses

• Mathematics is a “Service” Department

A New Developmental Course

• Mostly non-STEM students• MAT091, the developmental mathematics

course, is algebra-based• Most non-STEM majors take 100-level Survey

of Mathematics or Elementary Statistics • Create an application-based, generally non-

algebraic, Mathematical Literacy course

Creating a non-traditional Developmental Course

• “Service” aspect – we must ensure that the course serves the needs of other departments with a developmental mathematics requirement

• Keep the course mathematical while engaging the students and actually teaching them some mathematical topics

• Instill a mathematical independence in developmental students

Goals of a new Developmental Curriculum

• Measurable– Improve retention– Improve pass rates– Improve pass rates in subsequent courses*

• Intangible goals– Habits of mind– Students take more risks– De-compartmentalize mathematical skills

Putting Together the New Course

• Collaborate with other departments in order to finalize topical content

• Find or create a text– Write exceptional problems

• Not Widgets• Not Percents

– Focus on applied student practice and risk taking rather than lecture

– Have students think about how they do the math they have always done, then apply those skills to several areas of subject matter

MAT092: Mathematical Literacy for College Students

• This course ends up being more topical, and has more specific student learning outcomes, than the algebra-based developmental course

• Focus on rate of change in several areas of study, units and dimensional analysis

• Course comparison• Students build habits and “recover” after mid-

semester

Math Literacy for College Students: Opening Doors to Cross Departmental

Collaboration• Working with other departments to organize

subject matter for MAT092: Why not other courses?

• “That’s math, you can’t expect me to do that.” (said by the chair of our Faculty Senate equivalent during one of our meetings)

• Build on the Math Across the Curriculum idea

Why Math Across the Curriculum Now?

• Cross discipline collaboration has taken place at DCC, but it was mainly within the same department (MPCS)

• The new developmental course showed that there are other areas of subject matter overlap in several other departments

• Why not now?• January 2012: Mathematics Across the Curriculum

Professional Staff Development Workshop

If You Just Schedule It, They Will Not Come

• Direct contact now, report the results later

• Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Psychology are lined up to go

• Yes, we will hold the workshop again next year

Why NOT?

Why <insert your idea here> now?

influence at

• Numeracy• Habits of mind• Practice first• Teaching without lecturing• Leadership• Collegiality• Departmental gear?

Contact information

PJ Darcydarcy@sunydutchess.edu

(845) 431-8540

MPCS DepartmentDutchess Community College

53 Pendell Rd.Poughkeepsie, NY 12601