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Transforming Student Learning with Online Course Solutions

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Transforming Student Learning with Online Course Solutions

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Carnegie Math Pathways Quantway and Statway online course solutions are changing the way students experience learning math remotely.

Since their launch in 2019, Quantway and Statway online courses have served over 5,000 students at 50 institutions. In that time, they’ve demonstrated the same high success rates as in-person Quantway and Statway courses, even as implementation scaled in the fall of 2020.

Learn about our approach to online learning and the results so far in our latest impact brief.

Read the brief

Carnegie Math Pathways Welcomes New Instructional Support System Analyst, Richard-Thomas Haff

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Richard-Thomas Haff will provide Help Desk support and analysis in his new role as Instructional Support System Analyst with the Carnegie Math Pathways team.

Previously, Rich served in multiple roles during his 8 years at GENEX/Mitchell, a technology company whose products process casualty and disability claims. At GENEX/Mitchell, Rich’s experiences ranged from administrative support to senior level specialist, troubleshooting and directing help desk incidents to the appropriate contacts.

Rich also has experience working with student athletes as the head senior coach of the Baldwin Swim Club in Pennsylvania.

“I am looking forward to combining the skillsets I have acquired through my applied mathematics education, technical background, and coaching experience to provide the best support and work towards creating the best product available for learning and development of students,” Rich said.

The Carnegie Math Pathways team is excited to welcome Rich on board. His contributions will grow our team’s capacity to continue delivering high-quality technical and curricular support to our students, faculty, and institutions, and continue to improve teaching and learning experiences as well as student outcomes.

Rich earned his B.S. in Applied Mathematics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2013 and is based in Pennsylvania.

Key Takeaways from a Decade of the Math Pathways Movement

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Earlier this year I had a wonderful conversation with three key education reform leaders on the movement to create math pathways. As I reflect on that discussion and particularly how Carnegie Math Pathways has helped shape this field, a few things stand out in terms of what has been most impactful and where there is further work to be done in reshaping mathematics to better serve our students and ensure success.

1. Data is essential to understanding the problem we are trying to solve, to motivating the will to make change, and to helping us identify potential solutions.

Thinking back to the early 2000’s, most of us understood from our own experiences on campuses that mathematics was a barrier to success. But it wasn’t until Tom Bailey’s work at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) in 2010 that the problem was put into sharp relief. CCRC’s research demonstrated that once students were placed in remedial or developmental mathematics, only 20% completed a single college level math class within three years. And this system of remediation particularly disadvantages marginalized students, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous students, and students experiencing poverty.

Developmental mathematics is a well intended solution to a very real problem; yet its design actually prevents students from learning and succeeding in college level mathematics. The system of developmental mathematics has stopped half a million students a year from graduating or transfering. Knowing this has forced all of us as educators to ask hard questions about our current approaches. It’s spurred us to examine our own institutional data to understand how these national statistics relate to what is actually happening with our own students. As we begin to understand the impact of this system within our own institutions, it becomes clear that the status quo is unacceptable, that a more just and equitable solution is needed.

By taking a more comprehensive, data-informed view of the system that generates these outcomes, we are better able to understand our students’ experiences, the factors impacting their experiences, and how best to address them.

2. Reimagining mathematics education so that it is a gateway to college success for every student requires systems change, not mere tweaks to existing structures.

Through critically examining the system, it became clear that multiple factors affect student success, namely, how students are placed into classes, the sequence of developmental courses students must pass before being allowed to enroll in college level mathematics, and what mathematics content students actually need to know to meet their college, career, and life goals.

We learned that traditional placement methods overplace students into developmental mathematics courses (often a sequence of courses) before allowing them to enter a credit-bearing college level course, financially burdening students and significantly lengthening their educational journey.

Data from the Carnegie Math Pathways showed that students performed just as well with college level mathematics content regardless of whether they were assessed as needing intermediate algebra, elementary algebra, or even pre-algebra.

In fact, Carnegie Math Pathways programs, Quantway and Statway, showed that sequences of developmental courses were not necessary. Students could succeed in college level mathematics if simultaneously given the right supports. This evidence has helped spark the movement of corequisite remediation, which is now in place in roughly half the states across the country.

At the same time, the math pathways approach has ensured that more students are learning mathematics relevant to their careers and interests such as statistics and quantitative reasoning. No longer are all students, regardless of interest or major, on a single trajectory to calculus inspired by our nation’s race to space against the Soviets in the 1950s. Instead, mathematics departments are following the advice of the mathematics and statistical professional societies in offering differentiated pathways that give students the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their careers and lives in the 21st century.

3. Developing confident and successful learners requires transforming their learning experience inside the classroom.

The structural changes of redesigning placement, implementing corequisite remediation, and aligning math pathways with majors are essential to improving student outcomes and experiences. But they are not sufficient. Developing confident and successful learners and doers of mathematics requires changing how students engage with mathematics inside the classroom. Carnegie Math Pathways has shown that by actively engaging in contextualized mathematics in a supportive and inclusive environment, students develop deep conceptual knowledge, build confidence, and gain transferable hard and soft skills they need to be successful in mathematics and beyond. Because of Quantway and Staway, and programs like them, students are pursuing mathematics-based careers that they never before thought possible.

faculty at a carnegie math pathways event

Every student deserves the chance to succeed and advance, and nowhere can students feel an institutions’ commitment to them more than in the classroom. Creating powerful and effective learning experiences that help students build a growth mindset and foster a sense of belonging in class and in college requires investment in faculty professional development. For example, the State University of New York, through its partnership with Carnegie Math Pathways, has exemplified this commitment to professional learning by establishing a network of mathematics educators across their institutions who are focused on sharing learning and advancing instructional practice. And this investment has led to sustainable change for their students.

Our path forward

In the last 10 years, the Carnegie Math Pathways network of researchers and practitioners has played a leading role, alongside the Charles A. Dana Center and Complete College America, in launching a movement that has supported educators in transforming the educational lives of hundreds of thousands of students nationwide and abroad. While the Covid pandemic has made plain and even exacerbated the inequities in our educational system, math pathways continue to be a proven and sure step in dismantling some of these inequities.

Carnegie Math Pathways remains committed to our goals of improving math learning experiences for every student through innovative course solutions and by strengthening faculty development in equitable and inclusive instruction, and more. Progress toward this goal is possible because educators and administrators who are deeply passionate about making math teaching and learning more equitable are taking action.

So what actions can you and your institution take?

  • Begin by understanding your students’ experiences. Increasingly, many of us know the hard quantitative data about how our current systems serve our students. But knowing their personal stories makes the impact of those facts and figures all too real and impossible to ignore. Talk to them, interview them, ask them about their journey in deciding to come to your school, the process of enrolling, selecting and attending classes, and preparing for their future beyond your school. What do they hope to achieve? What are their pain points? Where could the system serve them better?
  • Then take the time to examine and understand the system that is responsible for the current outcomes so you can take steps to change it. Some key things you can ask include:
    • Are all the students who could benefit from college math able to take it based on your school’s placement method?
    • Do students have the option to engage in mathematics courses that are aligned to their majors? And how quickly is it possible to progress through their required courses?
    • Are students given the individualized support they need to be successful?
    • And are their experiences showing them the relevance of mathematics to their lives and futures and building their confidence as learners?
  • Reach out and connect with others. You don’t have to do this alone. Form a community of like-minded colleagues with whom you can share practices and ideas. Math faculty can connect with faculty in related disciplines to understand the specific mathematics skills students need to be successful in these disciplines. Faculty can connect with advisors to understand how incoming students are guided in selecting course pathways. Understanding each others’ perspectives may lead to new solutions for students. It may be that more can be done to prepare students for placement, that simple additional supports could significantly boost students’ identity and confidence as math learners, or that an alternative pathway would better meet the needs of non-STEM majors, saving them time and money and making it more likely they successfully advance academically.

We acknowledge that these tasks are complex and require time, resources, and commitment. Yet, the hard work has tremendous payoff. All of us need to understand our students’ goals and their experiences within the systems we create. It is incumbent upon all of us to create institutions and systems worthy of the students we serve. Together, the Carnegie Math Pathways network of educators has made tremendous progress over the last 10 years in transforming student’s learning experience and increasing success in gateway college mathematics. In the next 10 years I am confident we can do even more.

Q&A with Michelle Brock: The Importance of Social-Emotional Supports in Math Classrooms

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Pictured above: Michelle Brock and a banner hanging in her home office, visible during Zoom sessions with her students.

Teaching math has traditionally been about just that—teaching math. But as Michelle Brock, Carnegie Math Pathways Faculty Mentor and math faculty at American River College, notes, addressing non-cognitive aspects of learning can help math educators build a supportive environment in their classrooms that both reduces students’ anxiety and brings out their strengths.

Brock is part of the Pathways’ Productive Persistence Research and Development team, a group that develops and continuously refines the social-emotional support package the Pathways calls Productive Persistence. We spoke with her about the difference these kinds of supports can make for student success.

How has incorporating social-emotional supports into your instruction affected your students’ self-perception as math learners and doers?
It’s hard to say without actually talking to them how their perception changed but I can say how it played out in the classroom. What I’ve seen the most is the transition from students seeing my class as something they needed to be able to graduate—and not necessarily having faith that they could do it—to being able to redefine how they interpret success. I’ve seen students who would have success in math and still not interpret that as being successful. So being able to see that transition from students becoming resistant or tentative learners to becoming more willing to take risks in the class and more willing to risk not having the perfect answer, has been rewarding. I also think that was evident in the way students would realize that it’s okay to ask for help.

How do you know what sort of social-emotional interventions to use, and when, to best support your math students?
It would be lovely if you could just apply one thing to a class and it would work for everybody, but we’re all human. For me, I listen to how students are speaking about themselves as learners. When they speak to me about their troubles, I listen to the things that they say, or listen to how they speak about themselves in their groups, like, “You all are smarter than me,” “I don’t think as fast as you do.” We’re trained to think that learning looks one way. Some people only have to see something once and they can do it. That’s not me, and I don’t detract from that fact. I think demystifying that for students is important, so listening to how my students talk about themselves affects how I support them.

It sounds like that’s a really good strategy for you. Are there any other strategies you’ve found to be effective in helping your students feel like they belong in your class?
I think also watching other patterns in behavior that may not be so vocal, like attendance. In the past, I’ve heard from students that their anxiety got so high and they were so nervous that they couldn’t get to my class. So that takes a different kind of approach to be able to get them in the door. In the past, it might’ve been easy to classify these students as disinterested. Certainly, there are going to be cases in which people don’t perform because they aren’t interested, but I don’t think that’s the overwhelming narrative. I think there are other things in play that affect how students see themselves and how they perform. We need to take the time to acknowledge that we’re teaching human beings.

Yeah, for sure. It can be difficult sometimes, though, to get in touch with students who have been absent for a while. Have you found that to be the case, and if so, how did you overcome that?
I used to email when we were in-person. But what I learned when we went remote was that email may not be the best way. So, I’d watch for a response and if I don’t get one, I’d go to the phone. If I wasn’t hearing from them, I started calling them. I have yet to experience somebody say, “Why did you just call me?” It’s all been, “Wow, I’ve never had a teacher call me, and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.” And so, just trying to figure out how to connect wherever I can. I also use a texting app on my phone (Remind) to reach out to both individual students and the whole class by text.

Suppose that beginning tomorrow, you had to teach your current math courses without any attention to the social-emotional wellbeing of your students. You’re strictly teaching math. What do you think your students would lose?
Everything. Seriously, everything. I think it’s easy for a student to fall off and not bring their full selves if we don’t even take the time to see them as their full selves, if we don’t take the time to reach out and understand if there are any barriers that we can remove from our space. We can help. This has always been something that has been in my sights since I’ve been teaching. I started tutoring when I was a senior in high school and math anxiety was always kind of high. Students had lots of stuff about math anxiety, but that still didn’t really get at the meat of what’s going on. It’s a piece of it, and I think that’s what drew me to the work around Productive Persistence, was getting a chance to name something that I’ve always felt in this space.

You say it’s a piece of it. What is that bigger thing that it’s a piece of, do you think?
I just think it’s just a bigger piece of just the whole psychology of humans. That anxiety comes from other things that are in play that we’re not always paying attention to. It’s those kinds of things that we, as math educators, haven’t paid a lot of attention to.

How would you say you measure the social-emotional wellbeing of your students?
I think from the surface and watching their participation gives me some clue, but the best way I’ve been able to measure it is through our Productive Persistence surveys (surveys intentionally built into each Pathways course that measure non-cognitive indicators important to student success at the start of the course and their change over time.). Generally, I judge that somebody is doing okay if they’re engaged and participating and they’re reaching out for help.

How has training and support from Carnegie Math Pathways helped you effectively apply social-emotional support in your courses?
It gave me access to other people who were working on the same kinds of things that I could roll questions back and forth with. And it created the space for me to really tap into my learner self. I’ve always learned something new every day I’ve been teaching, but this actually made me sit in my classroom and purposely put on my learner hat. That has helped me be able to recognize more quickly when students maybe needed a different kind of nudge.

It’s also been helpful to talk with people who are going through the same struggles with their students and realizing that it didn’t matter whether you were here in Sacramento—or New York or Georgia or Ohio—we’re all dealing with similar challenges. Being a part of this community is a chance to really get out of the silo of teaching. It just took the individualistic aspect out of teaching and made it more community-based.

Learn more about Productive Persistence

From the Network: How to Make Your Solid Syllabus Liquid

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The Carnegie Math Pathways From the Network blog series provides advice and lessons learned from our nationwide network of educators to benefit math educators everywhere.

Like many educators, you may have a printable syllabus template you’ve been using and updating for years. It’s a solid template and it’s been getting the job done. But did you know, there may be a way for you to modify that syllabus to make it more engaging and even help you build community with your online students? With the rise of online learning, especially amid Covid-19, educators in the Carnegie Math Pathways network are finding success with the so-called “liquid syllabus” to help their students feel supported and connected as they learn remotely.

A liquid syllabus is a dynamic, visually compelling, online syllabus that can be accessed, bookmarked, and read easily from a digital device.

“A liquid syllabus gives me the opportunity to embed pictures and a personalized video welcome message that can do wonders for humanizing my classes and encouraging my students to let their armor down and let me get to know them as well,” Leticia Contreras, Statway faculty at Hartnell College in California, said.

As you plan for the spring term, here are tips on how to create a liquid syllabus for your own online math course using examples from Leticia and another Pathways educator, Brenda White, Quantway faculty at SUNY Morrisville State College.

Structure Your Liquid Syllabus

liquid syllabus

As it is not designed to be printed, a liquid syllabus gives you more flexibility to add support resources, live links, and to creatively organize content for your students’ ease of use and quick reference. One example of this is the use of a navigation bar. In Leticia’s liquid syllabus, created with Google Sites, the navigation bar includes:

  • Essentials. Detailed information about her course
  • Goals. Course objectives
  • Resources. Resources for students including where to access tutoring help, technology troubleshooting assistance, and more
  • Grading. Grading criteria and tips for success
  • Policies. Statements on Leticia’s teaching philosophy and policies around communication, attendance and participation, late submission, and “netiquette“
  • Schedule. A day-by-day account of what will be covered in class

Throughout each of these pages, Leticia has included words of motivation and links to resources that may not be found or as readily available in a traditional syllabus.

Introduce Yourself and Build Connections

liquid syllabus sample instructor introduction

The liquid syllabus gives you an opportunity to introduce yourself through a personal statement or a video message, bringing a human touch to distance learning (especially important during this time of social distancing).

In her introduction, Leticia shares with students that being an instructor is her “dream job” and that her goal is to help students reach their educational goals. She also sets aside time slots to meet with her students virtually, and encourages students to reach out often if they need help, especially during the pandemic.

This is also a space for you to forefront your approach to or philosophy on equitable instruction, and support it with a video, such as in Brenda’s liquid syllabus.

Social-Emotional Elements

liquid syllabus social emotional messages

With room to add mixed media and multiple pages, a liquid syllabus gives you additional opportunities to bring social-emotional support to your students, encouraging them to persist in the course and to understand why the subject is important and relevant to their lives. Many students enter math courses with a belief that they are not a “math person” or that they don’t belong in the classroom at all. Your liquid syllabus can help set a positive tone and reinforce the social-emotional interventions they may experience in your course to shift those self-perceptions.

Throughout her liquid syllabus, Leticia incorporates videos explaining growth mindset and motivational quotes (like the posters you might find in a brick-and-mortar classroom) to encourage her students to persist. Both Leticia and Brenda used Google Sites to create their liquid syllabi, which is free to use and integrates with existing Gmail accounts. A search online will yield several other examples and hosting options as well.

As a living document that can change as your students’ needs change, a liquid syllabus can provide multiple ways to support students, particularly those learning from a distance. It can also give you as an instructor a flexible and creative way to connect with your students. For more inspiration, check out Leticia’s liquid syllabus here and Brenda’s here.

Sparking a Movement: A Look Back at a Decade of Carnegie Math Pathways

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From COVID-19 to criminal justice statistics, personal finance to polling data, math is everywhere, and it matters. It’s more valuable than just a course to get you the credits needed to graduate and it isn’t just for those seeking a STEM-related degree or career. To know and understand math is empowering, enabling individuals to make informed decisions and evaluate information critical to their lives, communities, and society at-large.

Ten years ago, the Carnegie Math Pathways brought together educators, researchers, and institutional leaders to form a unique network committed to disrupting the inequitable status quo system of developmental math education, which was failing half a million students each year and depriving them of a degree or certificate to advance their goals.

In the decade since its creation, this network has expanded to thousands of educators across the country who are collectively pushing the boundaries in mathematics education to create quality learning opportunities that propel students to and through college more quickly and with greater success. We’ve always believed that we can accomplish more together than any one of us can accomplish alone. By harnessing the power of educators who know their students and communities best, our national network has developed research-based and educator-tested innovations that change how we think about and approach gateway math education.

“Why would colleges want to make students take two years of remedial courses when people like me are proving that we can be successful by starting out in college statistics?”

For too long, students, particularly low income and those of color, have been required to take multiple remediation courses, costing them additional time, money, and often derailing their education completely. American River College graduate, Cesar Bernardo Torres, could have been one of those students, but his advisor suggested Statway, a Carnegie Math Pathways statistical reasoning course, that gave him the opportunity to complete his math requirement in one year, stay on track to complete his program, and transfer to CSU Sacramento.

Reflecting on that opportunity, he questions: “Why would colleges want to make students take two years of remedial courses when people like me are proving that we can be successful by starting out in college statistics?”

Our goal is to bring opportunities like the one Cesar had to the half a million students who are failed by traditional math education each year. From math pathways that provide career-aligned, accelerated learning options to thoughtfully constructed corequisite courses, and online courses, this network has proven that with the right support, students can be successful in college-level mathematics from the start.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the program saved my education.”

And this success extends beyond students’ gateway math course. Carnegie Math Pathways students consistently earn college math credits at higher rates than their peers in traditional math sequences, leading to higher graduation and transfer rates.  Jacquelyn Lowe, a graduate of CSU Humboldt, sums it up best when she explains that taking Statway at Los Angeles Pierce College gave her the confidence to advance in her education and reach her dreams as a first-generation college student. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the program saved my education,” Lowe said. “Statway was hard but there was so much support. I learned that I was fully capable of succeeding in college statistics. Statway did more than speed up my college career—it was the reason I graduated.”

These are just two examples of student success forged by a math class in which students’ connection to their class, instructor, and content are key. Developed by faculty, Carnegie Math Pathways courses bring a novel collaborative and community-based approach to math instruction that dispels the notion that math is simply a hurdle to overcome on the road to graduation. Instead, our course design, and the network of instructors behind it, are helping students make connections to the math they see around them, and to see themselves as capable math learners—in many cases for the first time ever. The result is students who not only pass their math class, but thrive in it.

Michelle Gay, a former Quantway student and graduate of Ridgewater Community College, describes a self-transformation that has been echoed by many Pathways students: “When I became successful at finding solutions I was amazed at the feelings of confidence that came with them. The world became less clouded, and I was becoming more assured of my ability in it.”

This year, we look forward to celebrating the accomplishments of our network over the coming months. We’ll share reflections from educators on what it means to be a part of the network, highlight insights and lessons learned on creating quality math learning experiences for students, and examine how our efforts have contributed to more equitable outcomes and opportunities for students in mathematics.

As we make it through an unprecedented academic year and look ahead to the next decade, we’ll continue to move forward, together, to create math learning experiences that enable students not only to advance their goals, but also to value the math around them, developing and spreading the confidence that math isn’t to be avoided or feared but appreciated and seen for what it is—empowering.

Carnegie Math Pathways Virtual Courses See 3x the Success Rate of Traditional Math Sequences

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We are thrilled to share that Carnegie Math Pathways’ new fully online courses, Quantway and Statway Virtual, are boosting students’ successful course completion by 3 to 4 times the rate of more traditional course sequences in math.

Uniquely addressing one of the key challenges of distance learning — social connection — these online courses leverage integrated video conferencing and digital analytic tools that help students meaningfully engage in learning, while providing instructors with targeted support to advance learning.

Quantway and Statway Virtual, in development since 2018 and launched in summer of 2020, reimagine online learning by thoughtfully adapting some of the most impactful elements of the Pathways in-class experience for digital learning environments.

The results? Students enrolled in the online courses are achieving success in these courses at the same rate as their peers who participated in the highly successful Carnegie Math Pathways in-person courses.

Designed by faculty with experience using the proven Pathways in-class approach, Quantway and Statway Virtual utilize an intuitive and adaptive digital learning platform. With the seamless integration of video conferencing, an additional external account is not required to enable collaborative, discovery-based learning that nurtures connection to peers, the instructor, and the course content. These elements are key to shifting students’ mindsets and deeply engaging students in the course, leading to improved student outcomes in the course and beyond.

“I think it’s huge that Quantway College Virtual was designed by faculty because the faculty are the ones who are in the classroom,” says Kelly Kohlmetz, math faculty and Pathways faculty designer at University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. “We know what works in the classroom and have replicated that as much as possible in the online environment.”

These thoughtfully designed statistical and quantitative reasoning courses can flexibly support fully online, hybrid, or in-person instruction. Kohlmetz says, “One of the things I really love about the Quantway College Virtual class is that the Zoom [collaboration sessions] are built into the course. So the students actually work through the lessons together, as they would do in class — answering the questions, inputting their questions into the system, talking about their answers.”

And students are sharing positive reactions as well, such as Kristen Haner at SUNY Corning Community College who recently said the Quantway Virtual course was more rewarding than any classroom course she could take.

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is one of many institutions that are experiencing success as they deliver online courses to support their students remotely. RIDE partnered with WestEd’s Carnegie Math Pathways to offer a summer online transition course that helped more than 400 high school seniors and recent graduates prepare for college-level math using a custom course based on Quantway.

To learn more and try a demo of fully online Statway and Quantway, visit: https://carnegiemathpathways.org/fully-online/.