Meramec students retaking course frustrated by difficulty
Kurt Oberreither
-News Editor-
Like other students at STLCC-Meramec, Jody Dewes has come back to the same math course from semester to semester. Dewes has taken college algebra five times.
“We are within the national conversation,” Former Dean of Math and Communications and current Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs Vernon Kays, Ed.D., said.
“The issue of success in mathematics is a national conversation.”
Kays said there are many factors to consider when looking at return rates including socioeconomics, demographics but most of all high school preparation.
“In general, the more underprepared a student is, the less likely they are to continue to be successful,” Kays said.
After his senior year at Kirkwood High School, Dewes took the Accuplacer placement test, ranked into intermediate algebra and passed the course at Missouri State University. He moved on to college algebra and failed the course twice. Dewes then came to Meramec a year ago and enrolled in college algebra. In his third round of college algebra at Meramec, he is studying to earn a general transfer degree.
Prior to the adoption of Achieving the Dream (ATD), a program dedicated to helping more students succeed at Meramec’s math department made changes to the organization.
For example, tests in the programs are no longer required to be completed on a deadline.
Math department chair and developmental education committee member Jim Frost said the department demands mastery.
“Say the third week of class they’d have to take a test whether they were ready or not,” Frost said. “They had to take it. They took it and had whatever grade they got. So there was a frustration in that whole process of getting a bad grade for the students. So what we have done is we’re demanding mastery.”
Now students must attain a 80 percent mastery of the course.
Students are given a schedule that says if you want to finish this semester, this is when you will take this test. But if students do not take it on that day there is no penalty.
Some courses require students to spend a set number of hours in the math lab located in Communications South and next to the math department offices in Science West.
“If you struggle with [math], it’s not necessarily your fault. You just need someone to explain it to you in a different way to try to foster the ability you have to think critically,” Mike Roman, math tutor, said.
Dewes said he spends at least four hours a week receiving the free tutoring offered. However, he said at Missouri State, tutors acted more proactively, scheduling tutoring around the student’s schedule.
Also, mathematics final exams were not comprehensive, and although he did not pass, the courses were “a little bit easier,” Dewes said.
In some universities like Webster University, student who are not going into a mathematics intensive field are not required to complete college algebra.
Kays, who is a member of the development education committee, said one reason STLCC has become engaged in ATD is to improve developmental education courses like intermediate and college algebra, but he would like to see a substitute course for college algebra and a change in what is considered success in mathematics.
“The [associates degree] does not require college algebra,” Kays said. “It does now because we don’t have any other course option.”
Kays, who has been at Meramec for more than five years, said he has not seen major math changes during his years at Meramec.
“The faculty are working very hard at trying to improve it. It has not changed substantially. It may have gone down slightly in the success rates over the last five years as more students come underprepared,” Kays said. “We have more and more underprepared students especially in mathematics.”
Another obstacle, according to Kays, is improving the courses at Meramec with the lack of facilities like rooms to house math labs.
Kays said that is why math labs and tutoring are split between buildings.
Dewes said he likes using MyMathLab but has noticed an age gap in ability to navigate and use the program to complete homework and quizzes.
Blake Riley, another student math tutor, earned a D at Fontbonne University before coming to Meramec.
Riley has been tutoring for five semesters and said he helps between 60 and 100 students a day.
Riley said he sees many students who “really just want a C” but that Meramec math is a “goldmine.”
Dewes said he plans to make better use of tutoring to receive a passing grade in college algebra.
“It’s weird; honestly, I could be almost a professor the amount of times I’ve taken the course, but it gets harder every time,” Dewes said.
