2013 Best PracticesExchange

Statway: Our First 2 Years

Jerry Wright & Paul VerschuerenSeattle Central Community College

Clover Park Technical College

October 29, 2013

Today’s Agenda:

• Why is Statway necessary?• Who is our target audience?• What is Statway?• The Traditional Pathway• The Statway progression• Side-by-side comparison• Evidence of Success• Key Learnings / what’s next for us• Groundwork laid / how to get involved

The Problem

• 75% of all students place in developmental math (pre-college math)• Many have math anxiety• Same math curriculum for all incoming students• Curriculum is mostly a repeat of high school math• Math sequence requires up to one year to complete• Most students do not finish the required math within three years• Non-STEM students taking too much time, energy and money trying to learn math content that they will never use.

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What is Statway?

•Accelerated pathway that provides essential pre-college math skills in within the context of statistics•Culminates in a college statistics course•Intended for Developmental Math students (non-stem, non-business)•Cohort Model (same students, same teacher)•Developed by the Carnegie Foundation•http://www.carnegiefoundation.org

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Traditional Statway

Benefits of Statway

• Students with a history of failure in math get a fresh start• Topics are new to students; different from high school algebra• A non-STEM student is not necessarily any less smart than a non-

STEM student• Curriculum relevant to the future fields of our students• Cohort model give students a sense of community and support

Nation-wide

What we learned

• Students get the “statistics” part • Students learn at a similar pace• Takes patience and understanding to get through the “math” part • “I just can’t turn letters into numbers”• Students in our SHS department lobbied for schedule-appropriate

Statway section• Students recommend Statway to other students• Students with weak math skills feel empowered• Statway is more than just a new curriculum

Groundwork

• Carnegie Committee for Statistics Learning Outcomes (CCSLO)• All major 4-year universities in Washington State accept the Statway

sequence as their intermediate algebra requirement• All outcomes in Math 146 (introductory statistics) are covered in

Statway, with the same level of rigor.• Several major universities accept Statway as equivalent to their

introductory statistics course (hopefully more later)

Partnership with the Carnegie Foundation

• Invited to participate as a founding college for the Statway initiative• Co-developed first version of the curriculum• Participated with Carnegie Mellon’s Online Learning Initiative to develop

online text and activities for Statway

• Several Central faculty have worked at Carnegie as directors, associates and faculty leads

• Current levels of participation include• Teaching Statway and extending to South Seattle CC• Working across the district to broadly implement embedded student

success = “Productive Persistence”• Hosting an “alpha-lab” on Math Anxiety with

national research experts.

How to get involved

• Contact the Carnegie Foundation• www.carnegiefoundation.org• Bernadine Fong [fong@carnegiefoundation.org]

• Form a team of interested colleagues• Email us!• Jerry Wright [jerry.wright@seattlecolleges.edu]• Paul Verschueren [Paul.Verschueren@seattlecolleges.edu]

• Continue the conversation• Modify to fit your school’s needs