NOT BASEBALL

I hope this session by Tonge gives me some big ideas that we might be able to implement at HFCC.

Kent State is the college here. The placement test uses procedural problems. The courses have conceptual problems. They aren’t sure what to do about that. They use the ACT. It has two humps in the math distribution.

Students in pre-algebra or algebra tend to have lower hump scores. So cross-indexing with Compass does not do much good. It’s about the same. Both are poor indicators. ACT has an indicator of 0.2. I think he means r².

High school GPA is a better predictor. It correlates with doing homework perhaps.

They now have an adaptive course. Students can accept placement. Or they can work on materials and take a second assessment. The claim is that only about 30% can order decimals or find areas of rectangles.

They find that a student who knows between 15% and 35% can do OK in the course. I think “knows” means answered that percent of the classification’s questions right.

They notice that Q1 of next class >= Q3 of prior class for any given chunk of knowledge. Q is quartile.

If students work 10-30 hours they are 50% likely to improve placement. Not that many students work and reassess- around 10%. Second assessments are proctored. The first assessment isn’t.

Emporium- 5 classes at once- 10% accelerate. Grading based on final assessment. They have lead instructors and TA’s.

Overall success in classes went up from 60ish to 70ish based on students enrolled after drop/add period. Success rates in College Algebra and success on CA finals are up. They are not sure if placement or emporium makes the difference since both were phased in at once.

WHAT IS THE TEST USED NOW?
Go to the website. He was nervous about mentioning a commercial product during his session. ALEKS?
The test takes around 75 minutes sometimes although an hour is more common.
Hmmm. Would proctoring that work at HFCC?
I might share this idea with the department. It’s implementation would probably have to wait until we are done with our current reforms.

Knowing what the students know seemed to be the part Tonge was most excited about.