Strategies to help developmental math students

Nationally about 70% of incoming community college students are placed into developmental (a.k.a. “remedial” or “foundational”) math classes that earn no college degree credit. But only 10% of these students successfully move past developmental math to earn their degrees.

Four broad areas are being addressed to increase student success through developmental mathematics (1) Placement, (2) Pedagogy, (3) Curriculum, and (4) Student attitudes.

Improving Placement

Failing a class is not the only barrier to completion--the length of the developmental math path defeats many students. More developmental math students drop out of college without ever failing a math class than flunk out of math. One strategy to reduce the number of “exit points” is to help students place into as high a math level as reasonable.

For example, Cañada College uses its Math Jam both as an intensive preparation for the math placement exam and also as a recruitment tool to get more students into STEM fields.

The placement instrument itself, typically a machine-graded standardized test, can be augmented or replaced.  High school GPA, recency of the previous math course, weekly work hours, and total course load could be part of “multiple measures.” Some schools have abandoned placement into developmental math courses, typically offering supplementary resources for students in credit-bearing classes.

Modifying Pedagogy

James Stigler lists three key types of learning opportunities that students need to experience to become flexible learners: productive struggle, explicit connections, and deliberate practice.

Modularized courses can allow students to spend time only on topics they need to study. The Emporium Model relies on software to do the pretest, primary instruction, and mastery testing, with human interaction largely limited to one-on-one tutoring in the computer lab (where students work lessons and take assessments). The University of Illinois uses software for placement and remediation, and California State University Northridge uses software as part of its hybrid lab remediation for students considered “at risk.”

Technology also plays a key role in both MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and the “flipped” classroom. However, the “MO” aspects of MOOCs appear not to improve student success compared with the online developmental math courses that have existed for decades.

Another way to address the attrition between courses in a sequence is to offer “compressed” courses. The students take two courses during one term, but each course meets the standard number of hours per term--students are essentially immersed in math, which comprises most or all of their studies for that term.

Adjusting the Curriculum

The American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) has a 2014 position paper that states, “Prerequisite courses other than intermediate algebra can adequately prepare students for courses of study that do not lead to calculus.”

There are numerous “pathways” that have been created to allow developmental math students to pass a transferable math course--typically statistics or a quantitative reasoning course--that do not require many topics typically associated with intermediate algebra. The pathways normally reduce the number of developmental math courses required before earning transferable math units.

• Path2Stats is part of the California Acceleration Project, based on a program developed by Myra Snell at Los Medanos College.
• Statway and Quantway are projects of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
• The Dana Center’s Math Pathways include pathways for both STEM and non-STEM students.
• Mathematical Literacy for College Students (MLCS) and Algebraic Literacy grew out of an AMATYC project. They can serve as alternatives to beginning and intermediate algebra classes for STEM majors, or the MLCS  can serve as prerequisite for a transferable non-STEM math course.

Addressing student attitudes

The “affective domain” includes attitudes, values, beliefs, interests, and motivation.

Carol Dweck’s research indicated that students (from grade school through graduate school) with “growth mindsets” persist and succeed better than peers with “fixed mindsets”. And importantly, students can learn to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

David Yeager’s research suggests that the performance gap in math--specifically developmental math--suffered by women and other underrepresented groups can be eliminated by specific brief interventions.

City University of New York's Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is an initiative that does not attempt to modify what occurs in the classroom. ASAP stipulates full-time enrollment and provides participants with academic advisement, career services, tutoring, financial supports, specially blocked or linked courses.

Math Pathways: Designing for Success

On Friday April 27, 2012, Los Angeles Pierce College hosted a conference to share ideas about curricular and institutional redesign efforts for mathematics at two-year colleges.  A central theme was to improve the rate that  students are able to achieve degrees, certificates, and transfers to four-year institutions--essentially the "to and through" goal embraced by the Statway and Quantway projects of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and by the New Mathways projects of the Charles A. Dana Center.

A substantial majority of community college students who take a placement exam place into remedial education courses.  And perhaps only one in five of those who place in remedial math ever succeed in passing a college level math course.

Julie Phelps of Valencia Community College FL was the keynote speaker. She provided a national perspective on the the scope of the problem of students languishing in developmental math classes and discussed some of the initiatives throughout the U.S. that are trying to address the issue.

The break-out sessions at the conference were grouped into three themes:  Before Algebra, STEM Pathways, and Non-STEM Pathways.  At each break-out, math faculty panelists from local community colleges (Pasadena City College, College of the Canyons, and Pierce) discussed strategies being implemented at their campuses.

The conference was sponsored by the California Community Colleges Success Network (3CSN) under the leadership of Deborah Harrington and organized by dean Crystal Kiekel of Pierce College. The 3CSN.org website will host slideshows for not only the keynote presentation from Julie Phelps, but also from the break-out presenters Linda Hintzman, Charlie Hogue, and Roger Yang  of Pasadena City College; Kathy Kubo and Matt Teachout of College of the Canyons; Bob Martinez, Jenni Martinez, Ben Smith, Kathie Yoder, and Kathy Yoshiwara of Los Angeles Pierce College.

Gaps in developmental math students' knowledge

The Pierce College Modular Math 115 project for a modular, self-paced, mastery-based elementary algebra course is in its third semester.

We've made adjustments each semester.  This semester we've used the open source online homework system WeBWorK so that students can verify that they have the correct answers on all the drill questions, so we no longer collect those homework sets on a daily basis.

This semester we are acknowledging how inadequately we have met the self-paced aspect of the plan.  The four sections of Modular Math 115 all meet at the same hour so that we can physically relocate students to the classroom that is progressing at the pace most appropriate for them.   In order to accommodate students who cannot master our elementary algebra materials within one semester, we are moving the slower students (electronically) to a course in the district database that covers only the first half of a two-semester elementary algebra course.

Among the 43 students in my classroom, none had mastered even two (of the nine total) units by the end of the twelfth week of fifteen weeks in the semester.

The students suffer all the mathematical gaps we have come to expect, such as inability to distinguish the concepts of area and perimeter.  But I was surprised by how many of the students have only a very shallow understanding of subtraction (and of course of multiplication and division).

They are all capable of computing 5 - 3.  And they can easily answer, "If you had 5 pencils and I took away 3, how many pencils would you still have?"

That particular word problem involves the simplest model for subtraction, "take away".  But my students have trouble with the more sophisticated, "If your pencil box holds 5 pencils and you already have 3, how many more pencils do you need to fill the pencil box?" 

The students do not automatically recognize their task as computing a difference.  Instead, they solve such a problem by counting up from 3, and so they have even more trouble with "If you had some pencils and then I gave you three more so that you had a total of 5 pencils, how many pencils did you have at the start?"

And they have more difficulty with a comparison question, "If you have 3 pencils and I have 5, how many more pencils do I have than you?"

Some of the students seems unfamiliar with the idea of multiplication as repeated addition--they know some multiplication facts but do not recognize that one can compute 3+3+3+3 by multiplying 4*3. 

Even if we assume that our students have access to technology to carry out computations and symbolic manipulations, some of these students do not recognize what calculation or manipulation is useful when given a context outside of pure mathematical computation.

Statway lesson protocol

Thursday afternoon and Friday morning (July 8 – 9, 2010) Pierce College math faculty Vic LaForest, Bob Martinez, Kathy Yoshiwara, and I were in a “fishbowl” as part of the development of the Statway project.

In the coming year, faculty teams from 19 community college campuses will take materials (developed by the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching) and create, test, analyze effectiveness of, and give feedback on statistics lessons. The purpose of our two-day experience was to test out a protocol developed for carrying out this process.

The lead facilitator was Bill Saunders, formerly of Pearson Learning Teams. He was joined by UCLA research colleagues Jim Stigler and Karen McGivven, Kris Bishop of the Dana Center (UT Austen), and Alicia Grunow of Carnegie.

We were not allowed to see the proto-lesson until we met Thursday. After a brief introduction to the protocol and the Statway lesson approaches, we four faculty members spent much of the afternoon working among ourselves deciding how we could best implement that lesson, while a video camera and the observers watched on.

We were expected to have the lesson design completed before our 5:30 pm adjournment Thursday. Bob was chosen to deliver the lesson at the start of the Friday session, and Karen volunteered to acquire the materials needed for our modified lesson. Kathy and I agreed to put together and email some of the materials Bob would need for his handouts.

Bob was working until 2:00 am putting together the materials.

Our Pierce College deans Jacquinita Rose and Crystal Kiekel were attending as guests. But when only 3 students showed up from the 8 students that had been recruited for Friday morning, we put Crystal and Alicia to work, enlisting them to act as students for Bob's lesson.

Bob did a great job running the lesson. After the students departed with their $20 iTunes gift cards, we continued the lesson protocol with the debriefing of how the lesson went, analyzing the student work, and writing feedback on the lesson.

The researchers were pleased with how everything went, and promised we would not be seeing the videos on YouTube.

Statway: A pathway from developmental math through statistics

Los Angeles Pierce College has been invited to be one of sixteen community colleges to participate in the Carnegie Foundation's Statway project.

The key goal of the project is to provide a pathway for developmental math students to progress successfully from elementary algebra to completion of a transferable statistics course, all in one year.

The Statway project has already collaborated with AMS, ASA, MAA, AMATYC, NADE, NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering), and CAUSE (Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education).  Selected faculty from the professional mathematics societies make up the Carnegie Committee on Statistics Learning Outcomes, which has been working on identifying the core concepts, topics, and learning outcomes for transfer-level statistics.  The CCSLO is also identifying the developmental math learning outcomes needed to prepare students for learning statistics.

But in addition to redesigning the content and pathway to statistics, Statway will incorporate a student engagement component--roughly survival skills for a college student.

WeBWorK as an answer key

The principal author (Kathy Yoshiwara) of the project materials being used at Pierce believes that our  students misuse the answer keys found at the back of math textbooks.  She believes students need to struggle at times for an answer, rather than always be able simply to find the answers in the book (and to work backwards from there).

On the other hand, we recognize that students can benefit from the  reassurance of knowing that they've successfully solved a math exercise, or from the knowledge that their first efforts were in error.  As part of our student success projects for developmental math, we have been hiring student tutors to check off that students have correct answers before the students are allowed to submit their portfolios.

But we'd prefer that the tutors' time be spent in actually working with the students.  So we have begun to code answers to drill-type exercises into the open source online grading system WeBWorK.  Students will type in their answers online at home or in a computer lab, and will get immediate feedback as to whether or not their answers are correct.

We will still grade by hand the questions that require complete sentences as answers, and we will still  check the student work on the drill problems when we collect portfolios.  But students will now have a means of checking the accuracy of their answers before coming to the classroom and without needing to consult our tutors.

Removing students from a Moodle roster

Pierce College now creates an online course shell for each class of each instructor using Moodle, an open source Learning Management System.  The school automatically populates each Moodle course with students as they enroll in the corresponding real section.

However, the student remains enrolled in the Moodle course even after dropping (or being excluded) from the real course.

Removing a student from a Moodle course is non-intuitive.

First, click on "Assign roles" (in the Adminstration block).

Click on "Student" in the first column ("Roles").

Select the student from the left column (CTRL-click to select multiple students).
Click on the "Remove" button.

WeBWorK

I've been using the open source homework system WeBWorK for the past few semesters.  The first couple of times, my classes were hosted by the University of Rochester (thanks to Michael Gage) and now by xyzhomework.com (thanks to Patrick McKeague).

The bank of problems in the WeBWorK National Problem Library is thin on the types of problems we want to use at Pierce College in our intermediate algebra class, so I've been authoring most of the problems.  The fact that all the authoring tools are made available to instructors is one of the nice features of WeBWorK, probably second only to the fact that it's free.

The downside is that without the huge work force associated with the big publisher-owned homework systems, the product is not so instructor-friendly.  We don't get all the bells and whistles that we might expect if we've only see the popular MyMathLab from Pearson.

I only just learned how to change a student's score on a graded assignment.  It goes like this:

• Go to the Classlist Editor (the first link under Instructor Tools in the Main Menu).
• In the row for the student of interest, click on the "Assigned Sets" value (in the fourth column--it has a form like  "m/n").
• Click on the name of the appropriate set (in the "Edit set for..." column).
• Find the problem of interest, and adjust the value of "status" (typically change "0" to "1") to give credit.

On the other hand, WeBWorK is (like the commercial product WebAssign) publisher-independent.  You could use it with a textbook from any publisher you use, or even (as with our program) if you are using materials that do not belong to any publisher.

The MAA is assuming the responsibility of maintaining WeBWorK (http://webwork.maa.org/moodle/) from its original home at the University of Rochester.

Mediated Algebra Project: Success!

Three instructors used the Mediated Algebra Project (MAP) materials during the Fall 2009 semester.  Kathie Yoder taught a section that met early afternoon twice weekly , and Kathy Yoshiwara and I taught the two sections that met mid-morning four-days-a-week.

We now have evidence that MAP students learn more than cohorts in other sections of the Pierce College intermediate algebra course:  On the departmental Math Exit Test (MET), our three sections all scored at least 2.5 standard errors above the department mean.

But we had significant setbacks during the semester.

We had numerous technical difficulties.  Many of the WeBWorK problems I had authored had coding errors and/or needed refinement in wording or formatting.  And most of the WeBWorK exercises taken from the national WeBWorK library were poor fits for our project and had to be rewritten or removed from our problem sets during the semester.

Our sets of video tutorials--intended to help with drill and skill exercises--had many gaps in content.  And yet we were not given sufficient space on our school's server to store the videos created  by our faculty for the MAP.  Instead, our IT department arranged that only a subset of those videos would be accessible at any one time.

All three instructors found that the project's classroom activities and clicker questions required more time than was available in a class meeting.  Some of the activities, or the clicker questions, or both would go unused in each lesson.

We heard complaints about our WeBWorK assignments, the insufficiency of available videos, and the amount of work we asked the students to do both in and outside of class.

But the students who persisted in MAP averaged much higher on a department-graded common exam than students from the other sections of intermediate algebra.

Algebra Success at Pierce

Algebra Success at Pierce (ASAP) is a program that allows students to take both elementary algebra and intermediate algebra in one semester.

Whereas our school (and state) typical success rate is around 50% in each of the two courses, Kathie Yoder has had a 70% success rate at getting students through both classes in one semester.

Her students score higher on the department's standardized intermediate algebra exit exam than students in the regular or online intermediate algebra classes.

In addition to having an exceptional teacher, the students in ASAP have several advantages over their peers in other intermediate algebra classes. ASAP students are all enrolled in both elementary algebra and intermediate algebra (5 units each), Personal Development 40 (3 transferable units taught by counseling faculty), and a 1-unit math study skills course. (Yes, the students meet with Kathie for more than 2.5 hours per day, 4 days per week.) The students are not permitted to enroll in other classes during that semester.

In other words, they are immersed in math for the semester.

The course materials are written by Pierce faculty, designed specifically for this course. There is a Supplemental Instruction (SI) leader who holds study sessions outside the assigned class hours.

Pierce has also had students in a Learning Community experiment that had prealgebra, elementary algebra, or intermediate algebra, teamed with the PD 40 class and 1-unit of study skills. Results were not consistently better than for students in ordinary sections of those courses.

We have had previous experiments with SI leaders in algebra classes, but again with no convincing evidence of effectiveness.

This semester we have a second section of ASAP, and the new instructor, Jenni Martinez, reports very encouraging success on the first two exams.

The Mod Squad at Pierce

Five members of the Pierce College math department--Cassie Cain, Sheri Lehavi, Brenda Rudin, Zhila Tabatabai, and Kathy Yoshiwara--are trying an experiment to improve student success in elementary algebra.

Five sections of elementary algebra, a total of 200 students, are involved.

The plan is based on the Emporium model (http://www.thencat.org/PlanRes/R2R_Model_Emp.htm ) developed at the Virginia Teach and implemented successfully at a variety of institutions nationwide, and specifically at Foothill College in Los Altos (http://www.foothill.edu/PSME/index.php ).
The course is broken into small pieces, or modules, that students can cover at their own pace (with plenty of guidance and a detailed suggested schedule for successful completion in one semester.)

The modular format is designed for active learning. "Lectures…are replaced with an array of interactive materials and activities that move students from a passive note-taking role to an active-learning orientation." (NCAT) This format should also give students more control over the pace at which they cover the material, and encourage them to take more responsibility for their own learning. If students cannot finish the course in one semester, but do complete at least half the modules, they can opt for an Incomplete and continue the following semester.

Course Structure
The five members of the "Mod Squad" have organized the material into ten modules. A module consists of a pretest, four or five lessons with worksheets for in-class practice, a sample test, and a suggested schedule. There was an initial plan to have homework problems delivered and graded by computer, but that has not been implemented this semester.

Mod Squad members authored the modules, which students can purchase at the Bookstore at cost. Students will not need to purchase a separate textbook.

Study skills are incorporated into lessons as part of the course. The study skills activities are based on the lessons designed by the Mod Squad and already in use in Pierce College Learning Communities iand the ASAP (Algebra Success At Pierce, a 10-unit math + 1 unit study skills + 3-unit Personal Development) algebra course. We hope to be able to add a 1-unit study skills class to the Modular Math classes.

When students finish the assignments in the module, an instructor verifies that the portfolios are complete, and the students are given a ticket allowing them to take the in-class module test. These tests would require mastery at 85%. (The plan to have students take a qualifying sample test on the computer has been postponed.)

Students who do not pass the module test would be required to complete a second set of worksheets (and computer drill problems) before attempting the module test again.

Pierce does not have a testing center to accommodate self-paced courses. Instead, module tests are offered twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with one or more of the modular classrooms used as the test room, and one of the modular team serving as proctor. All students who are eligible to take a module test would report to the test room and be given the appropriate module test. Tests are returned to the respective instructor of record for grading. Students who don't wish to take a test on that day report to one of the remaining classrooms for class as usual.

Delivery
The course is team taught by the five instructors of the Mod Squad. Each instructor is responsible for the grading and record keeping for the students on her roster. However, all modular sections meet at the same time in adjacent rooms, and students may attend class in any of those rooms, depending on which module they are studying.

Class meetings concentrate on group work, practicing the skills on the modular worksheets. Instructors also offer short mini-lectures as needed. At least one classroom keeps to a schedule that allows students to finish the course in one semester, but others work at a pace to accommodate different students. Students working on the same module are formed into groups if they wish. The modular team instructors coordinate daily to plan scheduling and room allocation.

To facilitate active learning, there is a student tutor for each classroom. Tutors help instructors interact with students individually or in small groups and assist with organization and logistics, as students move from one setting to another. "Students need human contact…to assure them that they are on the right learning path. An expanded support system…is critical to persistence, learning, and satisfaction." Tutors are also crucial for checking the steady stream of worksheets and quizzes that provide students with immediate feedback. "Shifting the traditional assessment approach toward continuous assessment is an essential pedagogical strategy. … Low-stakes quizzes motivate students to keep on top of the course material, structure how they study, and encourage them to spend more time on task."


Timeline
It is anticipated that many students will need more than one semester to be able to pass all the modules at the 85% proficiency level required. So students who have completed at least half the modules at the 85% level but do not complete the course in one semester will earn an "incomplete" grade in the course. They can pick up where they left off the following semester.

But in order to encourage reasonable progress, any student in the program who does not complete at least half of the modules in the first semester will earn a grade of F.

The modularized elementary algebra course serves as the elementary algebra component of our departmental MAP (Mediated Algebra Project, mentioned in the previous blog). We can monitor both courses via the common exam given to all Pierce College sections of elementary algebra and the common exam given to all Pierce College sections of intermediate algebra.

More on the MET, our common exams, in the future.

Developmental math projects at Pierce

Several members of the Los Angeles Pierce College mathematics department are involved in two extraordinary experiments to improve the school's developmental math program. The Mediated Algebra Project (MAP) aims to improve the success of intermediate algebra students, and the Modular Math Project is trying an alternative method for teaching elementary algebra.

MAP involves:

• reading assignments completed before coming to class (in a textbook authored by Pierce faculty and available to students both online for free, or through the bookstore at the cost of copying and binding),
• online reading and skills questions (using the open source WeBWorK homework delivery and grading system http://webwork.maa.org/moodle/, with problems coded by Pierce faculty),
• online videos (including Pat McKeague's freely available MathTV site (http://www.mathtv.com/ ) and screen capture videos made by Pierce faculty),
• an online Question and Answer student forum using the open source Moodle learning management system,
• Replacement of lectures with in-class activities that explore math concepts, (from an Activities book created by Pierce faculty and sold to the students at cost) within an environmental theme when possible ,
• written homework aligned with the in-class activities, and
• concept "clicker" questions (written by Pierce faculty).

This fall 2009 semester is the first try at the "full" MAP package, with three faculty teaching in the pilot: Kathie Yoder, Kathy Yoshiwara, and myself. The Reading and Activities books have already been class-tested by the principal author, Kathy Yoshiwara. Some of the ancillary MAP materials were created by Roya Furmuly, Sheri Lehavi, Bob Martinez, Jenni Martinez, Brenda Rudin, Ben Smith, Kathie Yoder, and me.

The "Mod Squad", team-teaching a modular self-paced elementary algebra course, consists of Cassie Cain, Sheri Lehavi, Brenda Rudin, Zhila Tabatabai, and Kathy Yoshiwara. More on their efforts later.

Most of the funding to pay for the continuing development of the two programs comes from California's Basic Skills Initiative (http://www.cccbsi.org/ ). Further funding came from a STEM grant at the college and will be supplemented this semester by a Hewlett Foundation (http://www.hewlett.org/ ) grant. The college itself has committed none of its normal budget to the effort.

Teacher Prep at Community Colleges

Although only a small proportion of the general public or even the faculty and administrators involved seem to be aware of it, community colleges are in the business of preparing future teachers.

It has been estimated that 40% of U.S. K-12 teachers took math or science at a two-year college (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1999/nsf9949/nsf9949.htm ) and that 46% of baccalaureates in science and engineering have attended a two-year school (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04302/ ).

The numbers of K-12 teachers who attended two-year colleges only grows if we include courses and degrees in non-STEM disciplines.

At California State University Northridge (CSUN) , which identifies teacher preparation as one of its primary missions, more than half of their students in the multi-subject credential program (for teaching elementary school ) took math courses at a community college. Most of CSUN's math majors are considering a career in teaching, and about two-thirds of CSUN math majors took math at a community college.

Many or most universities require only 3 to 9 units of courses taught by math departments for the students preparing to become elementary school teachers. Some of these units may be taken at a community college, and considering that many students (51% at CSUN) take developmental math classes at a two-year schools, and furthermore that some students (20% at CSUN) require as much as 20 units of remediation, our prospective elementary school teachers are probably taking more math at two-year colleges than at four-year colleges and universities combined.

A number of faculty at two-year colleges take seriously their role in the recruitment and education of future teachers. The Teacher Prep Committee ( http://amatyc.dtcc.edu/ , http://teacherprep.amatyc.org/ ) is one of only eight standing national committees of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. Yet there are two-year colleges where the "Math for Teachers" class either does not exist or is taught primarily by adjunct faculty because the full-time faculty do not have sufficient interest to teach the course, or the institution is not sufficiently motivated to run the course.

A policy against married couples

Los Angeles Pierce College has decided that no married couples can serve together on a hiring committee. This policy was initiated by the vice-president of academic affairs and then endorsed by the Pierce Ethics Committee and the Pierce College Academic Senate.

The motivation behind the ban is putatively to reduce the possibility of Pierce receiving accusations of collusion between a married couple from a candidate who was not offered a position. The policy establishes Pierce's preference to restrict the rights of all productive married couples on the faculty over accepting any risk that a disgruntled candidate with sexist prejudices may file a complaint and thus cause Pierce the inconvenience of having to defend faculty against false accusations.

If a Pierce couple actually does engage in collusion or unfair practices, then the department should not nominate them for a hiring committee, the Vice-president should advise the senate to reject the offending couple, and the academic senate should not approve them. Further, everyone on a hiring committee, including any couple, is supervised by a dean and compliance officer.

There will be no inappropriate collaboration between any married couple if any one of the department, or the VP, or the senate, or the dean, or the compliance officer can do a responsible job, even if no married couple can act responsibly on their own.

Obviously it is simpler for Pierce to ban all couples rather than to take on the responsibility of making a hard decision to deny opportunities a specific couple if it should become appropriate. But a policy banning all married couples from serving together on hiring committees is in direct opposition to the recommendations of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

The 1971 position paper “Faculty Appointment and Family Relationship” called for an end to “policies and practices [that] subject faculty members to an automatic decision on a basis wholly unrelated to academic qualifications and limit them unfairly in their opportunity to practice their profession.”

This position paper was prepared initially by the Association’s Committee on Women in the Academic Profession. It was approved by that committee and by Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement was adopted by the Association’s Council in April 1971.

But let us assume that we support Pierce's position that trying to avoid lawsuits is more important that supporting productive faculty. Then we should consider how much better it would be if we also banned any two faculty members sharing religious beliefs from serving together on a hiring committee, because there is a chance that a rejected and disgruntled applicant may complain that the two colluded against him or her. We should also prevent any two faculty who attended the same school together from serving together on a committee. Certainly we cannot allow any two homosexuals to serve together.

Continuing this logic leads us inevitably to restricting the hiring committees to members of the Pierce community who are beyond reproach because of their unquestioned integrity and fairness, such as the Ethics Committee and the Vice-president of Academic Affairs. But the school's philosophy requires that we guard not only against rational complaints, but especially against irrational complaints of collusion. So the appropriate policy would appear to be that all personnel decisions should be decided by lot rather than allowing any human to be involved.

Tales of student cheating

At Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., there is now a grade of FD, considered lower than F, for a students found guilty of egregious cases of academic dishonesty. (http://www.calgaryherald.com/university+adds+grade+worse+than/1890672/story.html)

In contrast, at California community colleges, "...it is not permissible to give a student either a failing grade or an incomplete because a student has cheated on a particular assignment" no matter how egregious the offense (http://www.cccco.edu/Portals/4/Legal/opinions/attachments/07-12.pdf ).

Here are two tales from my campus in the 2008-2009 academic year. In the first, a student paid a ringer $1000 (yes, one thousand US dollars) to sit next to him during a calculus exam, and also paid $100 to each of several other students in class just to sit in seats surrounding the two principals. When the ringer completed the exam (early), a pre-planted cellphone went off. It took the instructor some time to locate the cellphone, which was stashed in a trash can. While the instructor was thus distracted, the ringer handed off his completed exam to the cheater, who then copied answers in his own handwriting . The ringer was not enrolled in the course (someone dropped from the class that day) and simply did not turn in an exam. We learned of the scheme because one of the $100 classmates confessed.

In the second case, an online student paid $100 for a ringer to take an elementary algebra quiz. We learned this from the ringer, who forwarded to the math department chair an email from the cheater detailing the instructions for taking the quiz and proposed payment--the ringer was outraged because the cheater "was suppossed [sic] to pay me $100 for the same which he didnt [sic]."

In neither case could the instructor assign a grade of F. The calculus student passed and the algebra student dropped the course.

And by the way, unless your school is so small that the instructors know all the students on campus, you probably have students on your campus taking classes for others.

Here's how the scam works.

Abe and Bob both sign up for English 1 and Math B, but different sections of each subject. Abe attends and does the work for both English classes and Bob does the same for both math classes. The four instructors involved know the names and faces of all the students in their classes, so they never bother to check IDs. (Professor Yee doesn't know that Abe attends her English class every day answering to the name of Bob, and Professor Zed doesn't know that Bob attends her Math class every day answering to Abe).

The two cheaters get credit for two classes while only needing to master the material for one (and without having to pay any bribe money).

A few years ago we actually had a case of a man taking a class for a woman. Classmates were upset that the ringer was raising the curve, and they informed the instructor that the same person was answering to an entirely different name in other classes. The student who was actually enrolled in the class was Asian, and her instructor did not recognize that her name was a woman's. The only consequences to the students were that they had to speak with a vice-president, and that neither got credit for the class that semester.

Section 508 and the Use of Non-captioned Videos

The ADA compliance officer on my campus says that I am forbidden to provide a link to any of the wonderfully useful videos I find on YouTube or MathTV because of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The text of Section 508 can be found at http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/act.htm, and FAQs can be found at http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/faq.htm. The main idea of the statute was to require that information technology resources purchased with public funds be accessible to people with disabilities. And, from the FAQ page cited above, “In general, an information technology system is accessible to people with disabilities if it can be used in a variety of ways that do not depend on a single sense or ability.”

But the subsequent state adoption of the regulation has altered the thrust of the regulation. The popular interpretation is that the regulation forbids the use of any video that is not captioned.

I recognize that captioned videos can be beneficial to many students, not only those with disabilities. And I do plan to include captioning when I create videos. But it is ridiculous that I cannot recommend existing excellent math videos (which are useful even without sound) to my face-to-face classes, not even as an optional resource for which no credit is awarded.

My issue is not about the benefits of having captioned videos, it's about a wrong-headed policy that exceeds the actual statute requirements and forbids using valuable resources.

The mucky-mucks embrace the ban on all non-captioned videos because they want to minimize any chance of a lawsuit of any sort. But they do not consider that the easiest path for an instructor is to avoid making any use of the Web, and the result will be that the students will actually have their learning experience diminished.

I'm trying to find some credible person who can explain what adoption of the statute actually requires. But so far I've only found people who can tell me the policy that their school/district/system has adopted, not anyone who has familiarity with the actual statute.