my personal opinion is that the problem lies in the way we teach
our elementary and intermediate algebra courses -- very rote,
drill-skill, a rehash of high school, taught in large measure by
adjucnts who are high school teachers. our college algebra has
always been more substantial with expectations of problem solving
and applications. this is always going to give the kids fits,
regardless of where in the curriculum they first encounter it. i
have three sections of college algebra this semester (one on the
web) -- my biggest struggle has been with getting them to figure
out how to attack a problem. they have the "skills" down pretty
well, they are just clueless about what to do with them. i try
to remedy this by requiring a lot of writing (what exactly is a
linear function and how can you tell it apart from a quadratic
function?) and by doing a lot of group projects with multi-step
formats. they were highly resistant at the beginning of the
semester but as we enter the home stretch this week, i see a
great deal of improvement in many of them. of course, my fantasy
of creating a room full of new math majors must wait for another
semester (at least) to be fulfilled, but i feel pretty good about
the way they have responded.
anne landry
dutchess cc
poughkeepsie, ny
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