ADDRESSING INADEQUATE MATH PREPARATION, A GEOSCIENCE MAJOR'S FIRST STUMBLING BLOCK

GeoFORCE Texas is an outreach program of the Jackson School of Geosciences, UT at Austin. Each year we take about 620 high school students on spectacular geologic field trips all around the country, with the goal of encouraging them to go to college, especially in STEM fields, preferably geosciences. This fall we sent our third class off to college. We have been meeting our goals of high school graduation (100%), college matriculation (96%), STEM majors (56%), and geoscience majors (31 at 11 colleges). However, we have identified a substantial stumbling block in STEM persistence: math preparation.

Calculus is the gateway class for all STEM majors. Students who arrive on campus unprepared to take and pass calculus are behind, and the further behind they are, the less likely they are to pursue a STEM major. GeoFORCE graduates are all honors students. Most (80%) take Algebra 1 by the 8^th grade. Therefore they are on track to take calculus their senior year in high school. However, by the time they enter college, their calculus-readiness is widely diverse. Our first two classes of college students report college math placement anywhere from remedial math to calculus 2. They identify poor instruction, lack of advanced math classes, and holes in their knowledge as problems in their math readiness.

GeoFORCE tested a new math prep initiative in the summer of 2011. Using UT’s access to the ALEKS math placement and tutorial system, we offered students the opportunity to take the college math placement test, use online tutorials to fill their knowledge gaps, and then retake the placement test. Students were paid to participate; 20 students signed up. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to determine what students don’t know, and then presents tutorials targeted to each student’s unique needs. GeoFORCE students scored from 4-89% calculus ready on their pretests. Those who put time into the online learning showed significant improvement on their final tests. The system has been used by UT’s College of Natural Sciences for two years, and their much larger data pool also reflects substantial improvement in calculus readiness when students use the on-line tutorials chosen for them.

A small investment of time and money prior to starting college can give students the tools they need to succeed in calculus, and therefore persist as geology, or STEM, majors.