Transforming Developmental Education

In response to a October 2013 report from the Task Force on Transforming Developmental Math Education, the Board of Higher Education approved a series of pilot initiatives aimed at helping students advance more quickly to credit-bearing courses while obtaining the skills needed for college-level work. The Board voted to:

• Set Academic Year 2014–15 as a period of experimentation when campuses where allowed to pilot new placement criteria, specifically high school GPA or limited variations. The BHE extended the period of experimentation and evaluation in June 2015 (see AAC 15-40) in order toto collect additional data on the success of students in credit-bearing courses;
• Encourage institutions to revise the content, sequencing, and timeframe of their developmental math offerings;
• Urge campuses to design general “academic pathways” for all students, including math sequences consistent with the academic requirements of each pathway or “meta-major,” such as social sciences, liberal arts, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math);
• Set an intermediate fall 2018 goal of increasing by 20% the rate of students completing a first gateway-level course within two years of enrollment; and
• Authorize the Commissioner to convene an implementation team to promote best practices by campuses during the 2014–15 academic year.

In January 2016, the Board voted to extend the period of experimentation of the developmental math campus GPA pilots through the 2018-2019 academic year.  During this period, public higher education institutions may use the placement standards listed below for recent high school graduates (a student who has graduated from high school within the last three years):

• Pilot A1 Standard: 2.7 GPA or above
• Pilot A2 Standard: 2.7 GPA and a “B” or higher in Algebra II
• Pilot A3 Standard: 2.7 GPA and four years of high school math

The Board also accepted the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute (UMDI) Final Report, A Qualitative Study on the Developmental Education Strategies in Mathematics Pilot Initiative.

Commissioner Carlos E. Santiago charged the Math Pathways Subcommittee of the Task Force on Transforming Developmental Math Education with exploring the benefits and implications of multiple math pathways and with developing recommendations for increasing success in mathematics that will:

• Ensure students take the appropriate math for their major;
• Increase alignment between college-level and developmental mathematics across the three segments of public higher education to promote on-time completion; and
• Increase transferability of math courses and applicability across the three segments of public higher education.

The Math Pathways Subcommittee of the Task Force on Transforming Developmental Math Education built upon the work that began during the MassTransfer Pathways process, when mathematics faculty from all 28 undergraduate-serving institutions came together to build a statewide transfer pathway in Mathematics. The DHE partnered with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin and joined other states that were committed to bringing multiple math pathways to scale under the Dana Center’s Mathematics Pathways to Completion project. By partnering with the Dana Center, Massachusetts has also adopted the four principles2 of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways Model (DCMP).

The Math Pathways Subcommittee presented a series of recommendations (below) and the final report was accepted by the Board in January 2018.

• Recommendation I: In an effort to ensure students complete the right mathematics course for their major, Massachusetts institutions of public higher education should develop at least four math pathways: Calculus, Elementary Education, Quantitative Reasoning, and Statistics.
• Recommendation II: MassTransfer Associate-to-Bachelor (A2B) mapped pathway disciplines should identify the appropriate default or recommended mathematics for their major.
• Recommendation III: Students who require remediation should have the opportunity to complete their college-level mathematics course within one year of enrollment, preferably within a co-requisite model.
• Recommendation IV: The DHE should develop a course completion indicator (“flag”) for all courses that satisfy Quantitative Reasoning requirements. This will improve the DHE’s data collection and the ability to track student progress.
• Recommendation V: The Department of Higher Education should work with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to ensure alignment between K-12 and postsecondary course expectations and requirements.

AAC 18-16 Acceptance of the Final Report of the Task Force on Transforming Developmental Math Education – Mathematics Pathways Subcommittee

Held on September 16, 2018, this summit was designed to bring Massachusetts public institutions of higher education and high schools together to launch a plan to collaborative design vertically aligned mathematics pathways to support student success.

Goals

• Inform the high school community about higher education math pathways, and complementary placement and co-requisite support strategies.
• Build capacity amongst K-12 and higher education partners to be able to vertically align math content in order for high school graduates to be college-learner ready on day one.
• Establish clear next steps to implement vertically aligned pathways.
• Determine plan to share information and planning beyond the districts who have representatives in attendance. 

This workshop was intended help faculty and advising staff address the challenges of implementing math pathways at their institutions. The overall outcome of the workshop was for campus teams to create an action plan to ensure all students are well served by the institution’s mathematics pathways. The workshop was designed to promote discussion and learning within and across teams on a number of topics, including collaboration between mathematics and advising departments, approaches and techniques associated with advising for mathematics pathways, and how to communicate mathematics pathways information.

Outcomes: By the end of the Workshop, participants would...

• Understand mathematics pathways and the recommendations of the Designing Math Pathways Working Group.
• Understand how academic advising fits into the successful implementation of mathematics pathways.
• Identify strategies for effective collaboration between the mathematics department, advising and other student affairs personnel.
• Learn about various advising theories as they relate to advising for mathematics pathways.
• Develop a basic action plan of next steps to take back to their campus to assist with implementation, building campus connection or modifying their current processes.

Over the past several years, the Department of Higher Education (DHE) has been focused on increasing the number of students who enter and succeed in college-level English and mathematics courses. There are several initiatives underway to help advance these efforts, and we have adopted a three-pronged approach to reduce remediation and increase student success:

• Assess students properly for credit-bearing courses using multiple measures;
• Ensure that students are taking and completing the appropriate math for their major;
• Give students who require remediation access to co-requisite courses in math, reading, and writing.

This Institute sought to bring partners from public higher education institutions together to discuss adopting the co-requisite model at scale.

This workshop supported college and university teams to begin and/or deepen work to develop and implement math pathways aligned with the recommendations from the Massachusetts Math Pathways Subcommittee. Through this interactive workshop, teams explored key steps in math pathways implementation, create short-term actions plans and learn about free resources available to support institutional work.

The Department of Higher Education, in partnership with the Guided Pathways to Success in STEM TAACCCT Round IV Statewide Office, organized a statewide conference and invited campus administrators and math faculty.  The conference highlight promising practices around alternative math pathways, acceleration, alternative placement measures, co-requisite math courses, and other models developed to support our students.