Math Task Force

Both Peter Gibson and I were interviewed for an article that appeared in the Excalibur today as a followup to the Toronto Star article related to the high dropout rate that we have been commenting about.

The interviewer asked me about 5 questions which I responded to by email. I thought I would post my (mostly) complete answers to the quotes that he extracted for the article. He asked, "what sort of skills (if any) are students lacking or what seems to be their primary weakness?"

My response was:

I know you are going to be disappointed with this answer, but I won't tell you that I perceive patterns of weakness in students. I am not convinced that anybody knows what is causing a high dropout rate from math courses. I know that people are trying to determine what it is and I will refer you to them to let you know what they found.

For almost any mathematics course we will assume that students have mastered basic algebra, trigonometry and arithmetic. This is true for the calculus and statistics courses and it will be true Math 1200 course that I will be teaching. There are other important implicit skills and mathematical notation that are harder to describe such as pattern recognition and manipulation of symbolic expressions. Students who have not mastered these skills will face more struggles than those that have.

The bridge we hope to provide for students with the Math 1200 course is to improve their of writing, logical reasoning and explanation. In order to succeed in some of the courses for their major, students will be required to explain why a statement is true rather than simply calculate or apply formulas.

One thing that I have found is that high school mathematics tends to prepare students to anticipate solving certain types of problems and look for a pattern or a set method that they can apply. This is an important skill that students must master, when they arrive at university they will also need and develop other skills and other types of reasoning. It is not unusual that students face a bit of a shock when they are forced to encounter problems that have open ended solutions and are perhaps designed to break all previous expectations of questions they encounter. A good example of this type of question might be something like:
if at a meeting of 10 couples everyone in the room shakes the hand of everyone except for their spouse, how many handshakes occurred at this meeting?
There is a period of adjustment to this type of mathematics.

In response to the question:
"And in your opinion is this a result of the education system, the curriculum, the teaching style, or some say it's due to technology?"

I answered:

There are larger factors involved than the education system, the curriculum or changes in teaching style. Although I do believe that these do change over time, I perceive that their effect is minor compared to social and economic factors.

There is a certain level of math phobia that exists in the general public and that sentiment spreads. Students are told from an early age that 'I can't do math' is an acceptable attitude while such a comment about basic reading or writing skills is unheard of. When they arrive at university, math then becomes the expendable subject.

I will say that technology has introduced a level of informality that did not exist in the past and could be causing serious harm. Across all disciplines we hope that incoming students to be able to write clearly with proper grammar and spelling, understand their basic algebra, arithmetic and science concepts. Technology has made it harder for us to assume that all students will have mastered these skills. What I fear is that it has taught students to give up after they are unable to find the answer on Google.