A college teacher must believe all college students can learn
mathematics
By
Dr. Sherman N. Miller
As a college mathematics professor who specializes in helping
traditional and nontraditional college students coming from inner city
backgrounds, I find that fractions were missed in a great deal of the
students with background deficiencies. A key ingredient underpinning
this fraction crisis is students never learned the times tables and they
got a calculator too soon. I give students two weeks to learn the times
tables and they are not permitted to use calculators in the basic
mathematics and the first half of the semester in elementary algebra and
immediate algebra, finite mathematics, and business calculus. I tell my
students that they were born with a pretty good calculator, so they
ought to learn to use it.
What I find that is a key contributor to the students being behind is
they never learned to read a mathematics textbook. I tell my students,
“If you learn to read the book it is your friend. If you do not learn to
read it, it is your enemy.”
Thus, I have students go to the white board and write out each
definition and then we parse them. Students learn that definitions are
like recipes that tell you what you can do and can not do. They obtain
the vocabulary of mathematics, so we demystify the mathematics.
I find background deficient students work best in teams where they must
demonstrate individual accountability for assignments. Every student is
required to do assignments at the white board that count as 20 percent
of the semester grade. When at the white board the student must write
out the instructions, write the problem, and then solve the problem.
Once, the problem is completed the students must then explain her or his
results to the class.
If work is not done to a high standard of excellence, the student must
erase it and start over. When a student does not understand the subject,
he or she does not get to sit down from the white board until I am
satisfied they understand. Tests are all word problems that focus on
fundamental understanding. Skill and drill problems are kept at a
minimum because it may be a rare occasion for their management to ask
them to solve an equation. Students also are told in the business world
their assignment may often come via letter, email, memo, and so on;
therefore, their ability to read these documents and provide the answers
their management needs will determine their competency.
However, all of the above ideas are under-girded by my belief that every
student in my classroom can learn. I tell them, “I believe everyone in
here can learn and you have to prove to me you can not. You must work
hard to pass and hard to fail but some people work hard enough to fail.”
My dropout rates in mathematics courses usually run roughly ten percent
at all colleges and all courses. My student ratings also run high in all
schools who have shared them with me.
My underpinning goal is to encourage my students to graduate from
college in less than six years versus dropping out along the way. I tell
my students, “The key to graduating from college is to take the right
courses only once.” I believe that students need to understand the
consequences of dropping out of courses and changing their majors in
midstream, so they do not run out of money and find themselves with
unpaid college loans and no degree to help pay them off.
