Why Colleges like the Math Emporium Model

One of the problems community colleges face is the tendency to re-teach material that should have been mastered in high school. Most two- and four-year colleges administer placement tests in areas such as English and math to most incoming students to identify deficiencies. The problem is that the student merely passes or fails the test, which doesn't examine exactly where there's a deficiency. An innovative approach known as the math emporium model tackles this problem.

What is the Math Emporium Model?

According to the Washington Post, dozens of colleges, including the behemoth Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC), are trying out a new placement approach to pinpoint a student's specific weaknesses rather than just labeling him or her deficient. Part of the experiment is determining how requirements for core courses in areas like math should differ for a French major versus a pre-med student.

NVCC and other schools are conducting pilots that are variations of a successful Virginia Tech initiative called the Math Emporium that dates to the late 1990s. Community colleges experimenting with the model allow students to learn only the math they need to meet requirements. The students work at their own pace online, with instructors available to help. This approach is a huge departure from heading off to a traditional Monday-Wednesday-Thursday math class.

The Virginia Tech Initiative

The Math Emporium at Virginia Tech is actually a learning center that doesn't look much like a classroom. A gigantic room is arranged so that students work in pods consisting of six computers. All 537 computers are Macs.

Anybody with a valid Virginia Tech ID can access the Math Emporium 24/7 while classes at the Blacksburg school are in session. Students can even check on the availability of a workstation before leaving their dorm rooms.

Staff members from the university's math department are also available in a general area to help students enrolled in any of the courses taught through the Math Emporium. The facility also has space for small-group meetings and tutoring.

According to National CrossTalk, the Math Emporium grew out of the university's quest to save money while helping its students fulfill a university graduation requirement billed as Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning. Most opt to meet it by passing a math class.

The university considers the project a huge success. Some members of the math faculty attribute this to students practicing active learning. While quizzes are taken online on the honor system, exams require proctoring.

Some students are really pleased to fulfill a requirement at their own pace and pretty much according to their own schedule. However, others feel they're being cheated out of a traditional class with a professor. Some parents have complained about not getting their money's worth.

Incoming Virginia Tech students are often less than thrilled when they step off a shuttle bus, enter the Math Emporium for the first time, and face a Mac instead of a PC. The location of the building, a long hike from the campus, requires a 10-minute bus ride, another annoyance to some.

The Results

One of the main reasons community colleges and four-year schools are so eager to try variations of the math emporium model is saving money. Colleges save on the cost of faculty members, classrooms, and, in some cases, technology. By its second year in operation, the Math Emporium had freed up space in 64 classrooms that held 40 students each and in 12 classrooms that held up to 100 students apiece.

When the University of Alabama adopted a model based on Virginia Tech's initiative, only 40 percent of students in its traditional math classes earned a grade of at least a C-. Three years later, the figure had risen to 60 percent.

NVCC also reports significant leaps in achievement after analyzing data from 13 math courses taught using the math emporium model. The pass rate for students in these courses rose by 50 percent when compared to other methods of overcoming deficiencies. At the same time, instructional costs fell by a third. In some cases, the model can cut the length of remedial study from a year to just a few weeks.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021104924.html

http://www.emporium.vt.edu/

http://www.highereducation.org/crosstalk/ct0105/news0105-virginia.shtml