The Common Math Assignment is based on data included in a front-page Hartford Courant article entitled "Poverty's Web Widens" (by Mike Swift, May 22, 2002). Participating teachers embedded the assignment into the course syllabi of courses across a wide curricular range. Students were asked to read the text of the article, which described changes in income distribution throughout Connecticut, and then to study an accompanying data table, (see CMA Article and CMA Data Table), which was the basis for several increasingly complex math questions. A brief interpretive paragraph question asked students to explicate how the numbers clarify the larger discussion of poverty in Connecticut, and teachers were invited to tailor the paragraph assignment to fit with a topic of importance to the course in which the CMA was embedded. The spring assignment--shorter, more focused, and more controlled--differed substantially from the fall one, and the two are distinguished here as CMA1 and CMA2.
In the fall of 2002, over five hundred students in seventeen sections worked on ten math questions of increasing difficulty designed to identify student proficiency in four categories of quantitative skills: numeric operations, algebra & geometry, graphing, and mathematical modeling. (See CMA Frontmatter ; CMA Questions ) Students were able to complete the assignment outside of class over a period of ten days, using whatever outside resources they needed. Students were graded for their individual work in whatever way was appropriate to the courses in which the assignment was embedded. Then papers were randomly selected and rendered anonymous for scoring by the Student Learning Assessment Team, using a rubric and methods designed by math teachers on the Team. The scores were correlated with academic history categories to identify areas where math learning could be improved through targeted pedagogy. The anonymous aggregate results (based on 73 samples) were shared with the participating teachers and students. (See Interim Report, for CMA1).
When the fall results were scored, the Assessment Team noted student weaknesses in the area of graphing and decided to focus the spring assignment on graphing skills alone. ( Interim Reflections) Two other concerns guided the design of the spring assignment: that the fall process had been unwieldly for the participating instructors and students, and that it would be good to see how students were able to perform in the controlled environment of a classroom test, as opposed to a take-home project.
In the spring of 2003, over two hundred students completed the more focused CMA2 assignment in eleven class sections spanning various curricular areas. Three graphing questions asked students to represent data by a pie graph, to model bivariate data with a linear equation, and to intepret the linear equation in the context of poverty data. The assignment also included a question that asked students to draw a conclusion from patterns observed in data table and to express the conclusion in a brief paragraph. (See CMA2 Frontmatter and CMA2 Questions) As with CMA1, students were graded for their work within the participating course, and anonymous samples were randomly selected for scoring by the Assessment Team. In this case, 110 samples were scored. Findings from both CMA1 and CMA2 were rendered in tables and charts and presented to relevant College stakeholders to guide program planning and improvement. (See Results & Recommendations)
Like the Common Writing Assignment (2001-2002), this year’s Common Math Assignment was a local project. (see Process Report) It was designed to respond to our own questions about student proficiency and to complement our own pedagogy and curriculum. The development and implementation of the assessment clarified issues and elicited further questions that we now have a stake in answering. Further, the project opened a college-wide conversation about poverty in Hartford, and that conversation expanded into a major community forum which brought in speakers and audience from throughout the region. The Assessment Team is convinced that faculty ownership of student learning assessment can grow with continued implementations of this sort. The key to full engagement in a self-propelling momentum of inquiry is ongoing institutional adoption of the emerging recommendations.
Revised:
June 2003