ORMATYC Fall 2004 News Letter

• President's Report
• BMCC
• COCC
• KCC
• PCC-Cascade
• PCC-Rock Creek
• UCC
• LBCC
• SOCC
• TVCC
  

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

While attending the annual AMATYC conference in Orlando, Florida this past November, it was repeated to me several times as the ORMATYC President what a great affiliate we have here in Oregon. It was a pleasure to represent ORMATYC, and to hear how complimentary people from all over the nation were about what we are doing. Looking back at last years conference and Executive Team, together with the opportunities I have had to visit with many of you from the different campuses, I have to whole heartedly agree with them! Thank You for your willingness to participate and contribute within this affiliate, and to encourage one another as we share in the common goal of helping students to succeed in the learning of Mathematics. I am continually amazed at the hard work and originality of my peers.

This is why this organization exists, and it's purposes should not be overlooked. ORMATYC is a non-profit, educational association. Its purposes are:

• to encourage the development of effective mathematics programs,
• to afford a state forum for exchange of ideas,
• to further develop and improve the mathematics education and the mathematics-related experience of students in two-year colleges,
• to promote the professional welfare and development of its members, and
• to afford a forum for input at the state level concerning mathematics education.

This years conference, ORMATYC 2005, April 21-23 at the Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City, gives you and me the opportunity to expand our circles of influence and encouragement with colleagues from around the state. The exchange of ideas, the improving of the mathematics experiences of our students, the effectiveness of our programs, the promotion of the welfare of each other, is certainly worth participating in.

The Executive Team and I invite you to actively participate in this organization and this years annual conference. Consider being part of the executive team by running for office. If interested, please contact Ronda Kingstad (rkingstad@pcc.edu) or your local campus rep. I would also encourage you to participate as a conference presenter, facilitator, or presider. The exchange of ideas can be simple and straight forward such as reporting on an aspect of your courses that enhances student success. If interested, please follow the links at the ORMATYC website (Presenters Form). The deadline for submission is February 18th.

I look forward to hearing from you this year, and seeing you this Spring in Lincoln City!

Kurt Lewandowski, ORMATYC President

NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE

BMCC

The atmosphere at BMCC has improved significantly with the departure last spring of the college president, Travis Kirkland. Interim President John Turner is working hard to rejuvenate the college, along with the rest of the college staff.

We are pleased to announce the arrival of a new full-time instructor to the BMCC math department, John Ashcraft. Hence the math/computer science department now has 5 full-time members, along with about a dozen part-time instructors.

BMCC has finally embraced mandatory prerequisites for all math courses. In the past, prerequisites weren't enforced and students could enroll in any math class they wanted. We hope that by ensuring that students are prepared for the class that they enroll in, we will improve student success and satisfaction in mathematics!

The math department is planning to reintroduce MTH 070, Intensive Elementary Algebra, this winter. Students will now have the opportunity cover the material from MTH 060 and MTH 065 in one term. It will be offered for variable credit, 2 credits for the material from MTH 060 and 3 credits for the material from MTH 065.

The BMCC faculty are again in contract negotiations. Although talks continue, a settlement is unlikely in 2004. Wish us luck.

Gary Parker

COCC

Hi there all,

It's already been a busy year for the math department here in Central Oregon. We've been teaching lots of classes to lots of students -- 76,584 student hours in the classroom, 62 sections, and 13.3% of COCC's credit FTE during fall term!

Our brand new, wet behind the ears, department chair is Charlie Naffziger. Some of you will remember him for his skills in juggling and stand-up comedy. He's been doing a great job so far representing our interests on campus and statewide, and keeping us hard at work unifying our course descriptions and outcomes documents.

We were very happy this year to be able to add a full time position to the department. Sean Rule joined us in the fall, moving from his old jobs teaching high school and community college math in Delaware. He loves Oregon, bikes to work everyday (even in the snow), and is full of energy in the classroom. His web page, http://www.seanrule.com/ includes photos and sound from his other life playing drums, rock climbing, and mountain biking.

Doug Nelson and Charlie Naffziger continue to provide online sections of Math 10 through 95. Their courses use The Learning Equation (TLE), web-based instructional software that provides customizable lessons, homework, and exams. They had 90 students this fall, and are looking for ways to expand options for students, including possibly breaking the classes into one credit modules, so that students could take just as much of a developmental class as they need.

And finally, we're looking at a big transition at the end of this year when both Jack McCown and Mike Sequeira retire and move on. Jack has been at COCC since 1976, and Mike since 1982. Both are recipients of COCC's annual Faculty Achievement Award for excellence in teaching, both have served as mathematics department chair, and both have had a huge influence on the development, focus, and excellence of this department. With them we will lose their combined five decades of experience, influence, and memory at COCC.

Because of these retirements, we do have two open full-time, tenure-track positions available for next year. The closing date for applications is February 17, 2005, and information can be found at http://web.cocc.edu/hr/Vacancy%20Notice/Mathematics.htm. The department's highest priority is excellence in teaching. Both positions call for someone who can teach the entire range of courses we offer, with possible emphases in statistics and in tech math.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the coast this spring,

Becky Plassmann

KCC

Here's some news from Bill Jennings at Klamath Community College. This is from an article Mary Lou Wogan composed about a new approach to Math 010 they are taking.

Integrating Problems Solving in Basic Mathematics at Klamath Community College

Those of us that teach Basic Mathematics courses know the pain and suffering story problems inflict on our students. For that matter, we have heard students taking other mathematics courses moan about "word problems."Yet as instructors, we know that application is what it is all about. When adjunct instructor Damon Langley suggested we integrate more problem solving into our Math 10 curriculum, our department at Klamath Community College gave him a summer stipend and faculty member Mary Lou Wogan offered to help. This following is a brief description of Damon Langley's work and what took place last term as two of our Math 10 classes piloted a project to integrate more problem solving into their curriculum.

After a couple of meetings last summer, it was decided that the curriculum of Math 10 would be broken down into skills (operations with whole numbers, integers, fractions, and decimals) and overt lessons in problem solving. The problem solving would concentrate on the strategies of guess and check, making a systematic list, looking for a pattern, and drawing a picture or making a model. Langley went about finding problems that could be used to model these problem solving skills and then be assigned to the students as homework. He was heavily influenced by the Lane County Mathematics Project Problem Solving in Mathematics series. The notebook that Langley set up contained eight weeks of daily lessons, each week concentrating on one of the problems solving strategies. After the fourth week the strategies repeated themselves. Wogan went through the skills lessons in the textbook and pared down the number of homework problems assigned so the work load was manageable given the addition of the story problems. She also went through the text and identified word problems that lent themselves to the strategies being taught.

Both Langley and Wogan offered to pilot the program in their Fall Math 10, Basic Mathematics Courses. While Langley made the problem solving central to the lesson and the skill lessons secondary, the reverse was true for Wogan. Both instructors found that they occasionally had to pull back from the problem solving when students were having problems with a skill.

The results of the pilot were better than expected. As Langley put it, it was "doing what you felt you should be doing." One fear that Langley and Wogan had was that the materials used from the Lane County Mathematics Project were developed for grade school students and that the problems might not be "adult" enough. The opposite was found to be true. Both instructors found that students enjoyed the challenge of the problems. When a fellow instructor observed Wogan's class she suggested "expanding the Lane County Math Problem Solving. It is really motivating."

Another benefit of the project was increased attendance and participation. Because students couldn't just refer to their text for the information and the assignment, both classes had less absenteeism. A downside to this is that those that did miss a great deal of class had trouble catching up, and floundered on the problem solving homework and sections of the test. In Wogan's class, the instructor who came to observe also noted that "everyone was participating and contributing at some point and were actively involved in coming up with a pattern for the situation."

Langley observed his student truly maturing as problem solvers. When he compared his students' first attempt at problem solving with what they are doing now he was impressed with how they could put the problem solving strategies to use. He felt that they wee producing work "head and shoulders" above what hey were first able to do.

In the future we hope to encourage additional instructors to use the materials Langley developed for Math 10, and possibly expand the curriculum to Math 20. In addition, we will track the students from these pilot classes, and we hope that they will be more confident, capable problem solvers.

Bill Jennings

PCC-Cascade

Matthew Funk from PCC, Cascade Campus sent this information to us. Here at the Cascade campus of PCC, we are running a pilot of a 2-term version of Intermediate Algebra (MTH 95). I actually designed the course, because I was frustrated as to how fast the course went (way too much to cover in one term).

My students are mainly returning (adult) students, which is kind of what I expected. We hope to permanentize the course via a vote at the curriculum meeting next term.

The only other thing I know of is that we are intending to hire one person for sure for next year (application forms online in a week or two), maybe a 2nd position, and perhaps even a 3rd position (all full-time). All of this is of course subject to budgetary approval.

Matthew Funk

PCC-Rock Creek

As of now - who knows what tomorrow holds! - PCC has two full-time positions open. One of those positions is here at the Rock Creek Campus and one is at the Southeast Center.

At the Cascade campus, they're piloting a two-term Intermediate Algebra class. This is MTH 99A and MTH 99B. The material covered is the same as in a typical one-term MTH 95 class, but it is covered at a slower pace in order to accommodate those students who struggle with the volume of material in Intermediate Algebra. So far the students are very appreciative and they seem to be doing well. We're still discussing whether or not this should be a permanent offering.

Finally, each year in April PCC hosts a MathFest for Jr. High and High School students. This year, the venue has changed from the Sylvania to the Rock Creek campus so soon we will be dealing with the organization & logistics of that event.

I hope you receive this in time...have a great term & we'll see you at ORMATYC!

Lisa Folberg

UCC

Hi there. I'm Dee Winn, and I'm Umpqua CC's ORMATYC rep. Here is our campus' contribution:

Umpqua CC experienced a surprise this fall. President Beyer left after 1 year, and now our new President is Blaine Nisson. Along with new presidents comes new structuring changes, so the department's position is being shifted to be part of a large division, as yet unnamed. We also have been working on restructuring the curricula in College Algebra to better align with our student population.

Best wishes,
Dee Winn

LBCC

Here's the news from Bethany Pratt at LBCC:

The 2005 LBCC Future Teachers Conference will be here at LBCC on Saturday, Feb. 26. All education majors and new teachers are invited to attend. More information may be found on the website:
http://cf.linnbenton.edu/futureteachersconference/

Bethany Pratt

SOCC

Perpetual Greetings from the Southern Oregon Coast (Coos Bay):

The faculty and staff at SOCC are somewhat anxiously waiting to witness the changes in store for this institution with the recent retirement of the Dean of Instruction, Lynda Hatfield, and the imminent retirement of the college president, Dr. Steve Kridelbaugh, in June 2005. Both positions are expected to be filled by July 2005, the start of the next fiscal year.

Construction of the new on-campus Oregon Coast Culinary Institute (OCCI) facility is well underway and should be completed for occupation and operations later this year. It is of interest that the Culinary Arts AAS degree program currently has a terminal mathematics requirement of MTH-70 (Elementary Algebra), and that the administration has requested the offering of additional MTH-70 sections in which only Culinary Arts students may enroll. For more information on OCCI, visit http://www.occi.net/ on the Web.

For many years, SOCC has subscribed to mandatory placement testing and/or prerequisites for mathematics and writing courses. An informal study conducted by our mathematics department (approximately five years ago) concluded that the results provided by the placement tests we utilize are often inaccurate. Consequently, we are considering the adoption of a different placement test, and we are particularly interested in Accuplacer. We invite comments and opinions on the effectiveness of this placement test from anyone in the ORMATYC community who has experience with this test.

It has been interesting to read in some of the news from around the state that several other CCs are piloting a two-term Intermediate Algebra sequence. As most of you know, the more popular model for developmental algebra instruction is a two-term introductory algebra sequence (e.g., MTH-60 and 65) followed by a one-term intermediate algebra course (e.g., MTH-95). At SOCC, we have firmly held to a model consisting of a one-term elementary algebra course (MTH-70) followed by a two-term intermediate algebra sequence (MTH-94 and 95) for more than a decade. We would be glad to share our experiences gained from this model, as well as copies of our course outlines and syllabi, with anyone who might be interested.

We are pleased to announce the arrival of a new tenure-track instructor to the SOCC mathematics department, Carol McKillip. Actually, Carol has been employed by the college in a variety of capacities over the past decade (including a four-year stint as a full-time Adjunct Professor of Mathematics), and she has faithfully served us during that time. Incidentally, the hiring of Carol represents a departure from the traditional philosophy of our department, which was to hire persons for tenure-track positions who would ordinarily teach all levels of mathematics (from developmental through advanced courses). Carol will be a designated developmental mathematics instructor, and she also will occasionally teach environmental science courses because of her unique background.

Finally, the mathematics department has received state approval for our recently revised, four-credit course MTH-260 (Matrix Methods and Linear Algebra). This course was originally initiated by LBCC in response to the course MTH-306 (Matrix and Power Series Methods), which is now required of all engineering and certain physics majors at OSU by the end of their sophomore year. At SOCC, we continue to provide our students with a thorough treatment of sequences and series in MTH-253, but our engineering and physics transfer students also take MTH-260 (in addition to MTH-254, 255, and 256) to satisfy the MTH-306 requirement at OSU. Furthermore, in the case of mathematics and science majors, the MTH-260 course offered at SOCC should transfer as a rigorous one-term linear algebra course.

Jeff Hayen

TVCC

From me at TVCC on the far eastern side of the state--

Our staffing situation is stagnant to say the least, no turnovers and no new hires. We have adopted Alice Kaseberg's texts for our beginning and intermediate algebra sequence. This is the second quarter for the texts and I think it's going well. We've all had to make some changes, but I hear excitement from many of our instructors, (full and part-time) about her approach to algebra. We have found the need for incorporating the graphing calculator into the curriculum. We were also able to change our Math 95 into a 5 credit class.

Pat Rhodes

My 2¢Worth

Hi, I'm Pat Rhodes. Somehow I found myself editor of this newsletter. I would like to thank those of you who contributed this time, and thank everyone in advance for future contributions. Being from the eastern side of the state, I'm acutely aware of how isolated we can get in our own institutions and classrooms. Along with Kurt, I see the need for keeping in touch with each other. I hope this can become useful part of our ORMATYC membership. In addition to the news from our campuses, I would like to know if you would be interested in having a theme for each newsletter. Some topics I've thought about are "calculator use in beginning algebra", "student interaction in distance classes", and "interesting math applets on the internet". If you would be interested in making this part of our newsletter, please e-mail me at prhodes@tvcc.cc

Thanks, and see you in Lincoln City in April. Pat

The End