Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Math Still a Problem

In response to my recent ETD Listserv survey, Philip Regalbuto of Trident Technical College sent me this note.  He is right about math affecting enrollments and retention.  I have noticed this in my past academic experience.

Lou:
This past week the department was scheduling classes and I noticed that the
number of project student entering the 2nd year of our MET and AEET programs was
lager then in recent years.  What the department has done is request a the Math
department teach an applied math course to our students rather than the
traditional college algebra. The number of students completing the applied
math course has increased dramatically.  When our students would take the
college algebra class and any prerequisite classes we typically had 70 go in and
maybe 10 get out of the sequence   Now we are seeing 40 -50  students coming out
of the new sequence, We also added a course in numerical methods were the
Engineering Technology  department teaches students numerical methods that are
relevant to Engineering Technology problems.
My thinking is part of ET problem at 2 year college level is the math department
and how it teaches math.

Philip also had this to say about enrollments and advanced technologies..  Again he is right on.
 
> Lou:
> I think the reason for lack of new technologies to be included in EET programs
is that these new technologies are part of other departments, IE automotive or
the network systems . Colleges cannot afford to hire instructors who know about
these technologies because of the low pay in academia as compared to the pay in
industry.  Most of the students I see also want to be an engineer, so they can
make the "Big Bucks" and get a four year degree. The push for STEM is what is
driving this.  Stem promotes a 4 year engineering degree and ignores the
technicians with two year degrees.


How do we fix these problems?  Thanks, Philip.

Lou

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Professor,
I have worked in private institute (For profit) in my first 20 years of my job life, Electronic teachers used to teach an applied math courses to students rather than the traditional college algebra. The number of students completing the applied math course was higher. (>40 percent)
Student used to see the relation between math and circuit analysis and appreciated math as a necessary tool to solve circuit parameters puzzle.
My math class results was similar to yours that When our students would take the college algebra class and any prerequisite classes taught by an adjunct teacher with Math back ground only we typically had 100 student to start in and maybe 30 students to finish course of the sequence Now we are seeing over 50 students coming out of the new sequence, We also added a course in numerical methods relevant to Engineering Technology problems.

But, in last two decades ABET has asked us to keep circuit analysis part out of Math courses and our home office managers decided to use computers with custom courses (with more help/hints) to students to finish courses at their pace. Computer are cheaper than hiring an Engineer to teach basic arithmetic course to a public school students from Newark, NJ living in a tough housing neighborhood areas. Just maintaining class discipline is a task in cores below 99 level. I hope you are teaching only to middle class self motivated students living in suburb areas. They have more help and support from college graduate parents.
My thinking is part of ET problem at 2 year college level is the ABET as they want to tell math department how to teach math to technical students. Personally I don't like computers to teach math course but they are cheaper so they have replaced me long time ago in teaching courses below 99 level. Now I am retired, I took my retirement package during 3rd or 4th staff adjustment. Be honest with you I don't have desire to enter in that fun game and politics again, let, some new Immigrant from Middle East enjoy his/her American dream life with our tough housing students and wonder why teachings was so easy/simple in their school system. Thanks.
with regards, RPM

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