![]() What’s becoming a persistent problem at some colleges has been a blip for others. Professors report that students who participate have scored 20% higher on exams, said Tracy Langkilde, dean of Penn State’s College of Science. Penn State tackled the problem by expanding peer tutoring. In lieu of traditional remedial classes, which some research finds to be ineffective, more schools are offering “corequisite” classes that help students shore up on the basics while also taking higher courses like calculus. Some are adding summer camps like George Mason’s, which helped participants increase placement test scores by 59% on average. Many are trying to identify gaps sooner, adopting placement tests that delve deeper into math skills. “They’re not going to have the same access.”Ĭolleges say there’s no quick fix. “Those are the students who were most impacted by the pandemic, and they’re the ones who are going to suffer the longer-term consequences,” she said. And at home, parents are generally more comfortable helping with reading than math.Īs with other learning setbacks, math issues are most pronounced among Black, Latino, low-income and other vulnerable students, said Katharine Strunk, who led a study on learning delays in Michigan and is now dean of the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania. When students fell behind in areas like algebra, gaps could go unnoticed for a year or more as they moved to subjects such as geometry or trigonometry. An intensely hands-on subject, math was hard to translate to virtual classrooms. ![]() Researchers say math learning suffered for various reasons. “I hate to use that term, but they’re so behind.” “It’s not just that they’re unprepared, they’re almost damaged,” said Brian Rider, Temple’s math chair. “It was a striking moment of, like, wow - this is significant and deep.”īefore the pandemic, about 800 students per semester were placed into that class, the equivalent of ninth grade math. ![]() No two papers had the same answer, and none of them were correct,” she said. “I graded a whole bunch of papers in a row. The quiz, a softball at the start of the fall semester, asked students to subtract eight from negative six. “We’re talking about college-level pre-calculus and calculus classes, and students cannot even add one-half and one-third.”įor Jessica Babcock, a Temple University math professor, the magnitude of the problem hit home last year as she graded quizzes in her intermediate algebra class, the lowest option for STEM majors. “This is a huge issue,” said Maria Emelianenko, chair of George Mason’s math department.
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