To Keep Students in STEM fields, Let’s Weed Out the Weed-Out Math Classes

[GURPS]

All routes to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees run through calculus classes. Each year, hundreds of thousands of college students take introductory calculus. But only a fraction ultimately complete a STEM degree, and research about why students abandon such degrees suggests that traditional calculus courses are one of the reasons. With scientific understanding and innovation increasingly central to solving 21st-century problems, this loss of talent is something society can ill afford.

Math departments alone are unlikely to solve this dilemma. Several of the promising calculus reforms highlighted in our report Charting a New Course: Investigating Barriers on the Calculus Pathway to STEM, published with the California Education Learning Lab, were spearheaded by professors outside of math departments. It's time for STEM faculty to prioritize collaboration across disciplines to transform math classes from weed-out mechanisms to fertile terrain for cultivating a diverse generation of STEM researchers and professionals.

This is not uncharted territory.

To Keep Students in STEM fields, Let's Weed Out the Weed-Out Math Classes

Reimagining calculus has changed several schools’ success rates. Here’s how

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[GURPS]

@SamSpade

 

[SamSpade]

I’m in favor of weed out classes if they are pertinent to the curricula. Chemistry, physics and engineering ALL depend on it. Try to imagine taking classes all written in German or Russian but you’re fussing because you just can’t pass the language requirement. OR they water it down SO much that you’re STILL lost in the higher level classes.

Now I get it. I do not agree that, say, tough math and chemistry should be used to weed out med students, because most of the time you’re not going to need it to be a good surgeon or pediatrician. In engineering it’s essential.

Schools for years have had to deal with too many students trying to enter their programs and PART of the reason is, they just can’t do the work and THAT will make it more difficult for a qualified student to enter the rest of the program.

Sadly making it overly hard might disqualify a good student who had one or two bad days.

HERE is what they need to do - entrance exams for highly sought after programs that are standard. It’s kind of the same thing really but it opens the possibility of broader input into how it’s written and the concept is not unprecedented.

I was at an engineering school in the seventies that fretted over the low percentage of women in their school - so one year rather than step up their recruiting or promotional efforts, they simply lowered the requirements for female applicants in grades and standardized test scores. By the end of the first semester over half had flunked out. Not only was the idea a complete failure but it was damaging to THOSE students AND the qualified ones who were NOT admitted. The ones who flunked had to start over and those not admitted may not have gotten into a school they wanted.

It’s just never going to work to adjust entry to a program to expand its diversity. You can’t just hand out PhD’s because of a desired result. You have to find a way to get more students prepared.

And that’s not something a post-secondary school has any ability to do, short of teaching high school kids.

 

[glhs837]

I was at an engineering school in the seventies that fretted over the low percentage of women in their school - so one year rather than step up their recruiting or promotional efforts, they simply lowered the requirements for female applicants in grades and standardized test scores. By the end of the first semester over half had flunked out. Not only was the idea a complete failure but it was damaging to THOSE students AND the qualified ones who were NOT admitted. The ones who flunked had to start over and those not admitted may not have gotten into a school they wanted.

It’s just never going to work to adjust entry to a program to expand its diversity. You can’t just hand out PhD’s because of a desired result. You have to find a way to get more students prepared.

And that’s not something a post-secondary school has any ability to do, short of teaching high school kids.

Amateur's. You need to lower the whole damn thing

They do in all the various "studies" pipelines

 

[GURPS]

I’m in favor of weed out classes if they are pertinent to the curricula.

that was the point, is Calculus Required for some STEM Degrees

its like Automotive Education ... do yo9u really NEED 4 yrs of Math and English to learn how repair a car ...


NO you need skills troubleshooting problems, how to operate the test equipment, and how to read a torque wrench

with ' modern ' cars its more learning how to take the damn thing apart to get at the problem

I'm sure GLHS has some stories from BMW

 

[SamSpade]

that was the point, is Calculus Required for some STEM Degrees

its like Automotive Education ... do yo9u really NEED 4 yrs of Math and English to learn how repair a car ...

I do think that SOME ability at problem solving is innate - that some things can't be taught. I'm very good at trouble-shooting programs and most computer problems we run into at work, if it involves technology I know about. I try not to let people know this, or I'd spend all my time fixing other people's problems. When I was in high school I worked at a drug store with three registers, and we had one really great employee who was always at the primary register - until she just quit. I'd ask why did you always keep Liz up front? Answer: because she's more than twice as fast as any of you and she ALWAYS comes up even every night.

ANYWAY -

A typical example from my time eons ago at Maryland. We had simply way too many people trying to enter the electrical engineering program. SO they did have two "weed out" courses. If you can't get better than a C, you wouldn't be allowed into the upper level classes. One was basic circuits; the other was basic programming, although it did include some logic design and material I never saw again in my lifetime.

Truth was, there were a lot of people that WANTED to be engineers, but simply had no aptitude for it. I get it. I left an ROTC program because while I was rubbing shoulders with guys who COULD NOT WAIT for their commission and had a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships in their room - I could not care less. It paid well but I just wasn't going to be good at taking orders and I did not ache to be at sea. I did ok but I hated it. Some people enter engineering either because someone told them it was a good choice or they knew it paid well - but they really couldn't find their ass with both hands. SOME OF THOSE squeaked into the upper classes and still languished.

I think it's a shame, but what else can you do if 1500 applicants want in to a program that can only sustain 300? Hire more professors and build more buildings, only for over half to flunk out? You restrict access. I'm ashamed to admit I DID have to repeat one of those weed out classes. I got a C the first time.

I think some high schools have a good idea - create programs at the HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL - and extra curricular type programs - to help them advance. Others bemoan the fact that they cannot seem to graduate most of their kids with the basic abilities needed to graduate from high school, so they create a watered down curricula. I know - seen it with my kids. I have one child who clearly has some kind of learning disability and hates to read because she struggles so much with comprehension. I do honestly believe she has some kind of dyslexia, because she is bright in other ways and excels in classes not requiring much reading. Guess what? She is still getting good grades in those classes.

I do think the United States needs to change its whole approach to education and consider the way other nations do it.

 

[vraiblonde]

A lot of the problem with these schools/programs is that they're trying to hammer square pegs into round holes. I'm guessing they get more money? Dunno. But trying to get more girls and more black people and more blahblahblah is stupid. The programs are available, kids either have an interest and aptitude or they don't. A budding Katherine Johnson shouldn't have to share an advanced math class with someone like me who doesn't belong there.

It's like colleges that give scholarships based on race or gender or some other non-academic characteristic - it screws up the retention rate because they get a lot of kids who shouldn't be there and end up dropping out, which is a waste of everyone's time and money. That's why these schools had to start offering degrees in stupid crap and watering down cores, to drag kids who shouldn't be there kicking and screaming over the finish line. This results in what we see today: young people with no job skills or meaningful education saddled with a mountain of student loan debt that they can't possibly pay off.

 

[stgislander]

I do think that SOME ability at problem solving is innate - that some things can't be taught. I'm very good at trouble-shooting programs and most computer problems we run into at work, if it involves technology I know about. I try not to let people know this, or I'd spend all my time fixing other people's problems. When I was in high school I worked at a drug store with three registers, and we had one really great employee who was always at the primary register - until she just quit. I'd ask why did you always keep Liz up front? Answer: because she's more than twice as fast as any of you and she ALWAYS comes up even every night.

ANYWAY -

A typical example from my time eons ago at Maryland. We had simply way too many people trying to enter the electrical engineering program. SO they did have two "weed out" courses. If you can't get better than a C, you wouldn't be allowed into the upper level classes. One was basic circuits; the other was basic programming, although it did include some logic design and material I never saw again in my lifetime.

Truth was, there were a lot of people that WANTED to be engineers, but simply had no aptitude for it. I get it. I left an ROTC program because while I was rubbing shoulders with guys who COULD NOT WAIT for their commission and had a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships in their room - I could not care less. It paid well but I just wasn't going to be good at taking orders and I did not ache to be at sea. I did ok but I hated it. Some people enter engineering either because someone told them it was a good choice or they knew it paid well - but they really couldn't find their ass with both hands. SOME OF THOSE squeaked into the upper classes and still languished.

I think it's a shame, but what else can you do if 1500 applicants want in to a program that can only sustain 300? Hire more professors and build more buildings, only for over half to flunk out? You restrict access. I'm ashamed to admit I DID have to repeat one of those weed out classes. I got a C the first time.

I think some high schools have a good idea - create programs at the HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL - and extra curricular type programs - to help them advance. Others bemoan the fact that they cannot seem to graduate most of their kids with the basic abilities needed to graduate from high school, so they create a watered down curricula. I know - seen it with my kids. I have one child who clearly has some kind of learning disability and hates to read because she struggles so much with comprehension. I do honestly believe she has some kind of dyslexia, because she is bright in other ways and excels in classes not requiring much reading. Guess what? She is still getting good grades in those classes.

I do think the United States needs to change its whole approach to education and consider the way other nations do it.

That reminds me that a few weeks ago I had to drag out my college logic design textbooks from the mid-80's to help me design a latching flip-flop circuit in LabVIEW using AND/OR/NAND/NOR/NOT gates. Talk about a blast from the past.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

If someone can't handle calculus I'd love to see them in controls and vibration or heat transfer.

 

[SamSpade]

If someone can't handle calculus I'd love to see them in controls and vibration or heat transfer.

Honestly, it's like offering a degree in a foreign language, and they can't pass Foreign Language 101. Basic circuits is the alphabet of EE; calculus is the language of engineering; basic boolean logic is essential to simple programming.

 

[Kyle]

That reminds me that a few weeks ago I had to drag out my college logic design textbooks from the mid-80's to help me design a latching flip-flop circuit in LabVIEW using AND/OR/NAND/NOR/NOT gates. Talk about a blast from the past.

Dont forget XOR/XNOR

 

[stgislander]

Dont forget XOR/XNOR

It took you 5 days to come up with 2 missing gates?

 

[Kyle]

It took you 5 days to come up with 2 missing gates?

I just saw the thread.

 

[Kyle]

 

[Gilligan]

If someone can't handle calculus I'd love to see them in controls and vibration or heat transfer.

Yep. The "weed out" course for engineering at Purdue was freshman chemistry. Freshman physics was a close second. The high dropout/transfer rate reflected the difficulty of both.