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Preparing Tomorrow's Science and Math Teachers Summer
2003 |
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St. Charles Community College's team - Joyce Lindstrom, Zoe Fitzgerald, Daniel Larson, and Larry Higgins, of Ft. Zumwalt School District - has developed team-taught linked sections of college algebra and biology. Our goals included achieving a deep understanding of both content areas, improved student dispositions toward math and science, appropriate uses of technology, student retention, and peer/faculty collaboration. Assessment measures included peer review of homework, tests, projects, and laboratory experiments. Atten-dance was 100% except for two emergencies with students' children. Six of the seven students (86%) passed the class with a C or better, in contrast to 54% campus-wide. On a department component of the final exam, the average of the pilot section was 4.5, while the department average was 3.984. Thus, on measures of retention, attendance, pass rate, and final exam, the pilot section scored well above the department average. Students formed a learning community and met regularly outside of class. One student reported, "I have to admit that I don't hate math anymore." Near the end of the semester, our mentors, Mercedes McGowen, William Rainey Harper Community College, and Darlene Whitkanack, educational consultant, came to observe our students and were impressed both with the integration of content and how articulate the students were in algebra and biology concepts. Two primary challenges remain: 1) funding to pay for team-teaching; 2) student enrollment patterns. Because many education majors place into developmental math, they take biology before they are ready for college algebra. Meetings with college advisors have provided assurance that the enrollment pattern challenge will work itself out in 3-4 semesters. As we examined college algebra and biology for common content, an interesting theme arose - medical applications. Drug concentration applications, for example, appeared in rational, polynomial, and exponential functions, as well as in geometric series. Inverse variation described the relationship between viewing window and microscope magnification. The fundamental counting principal was used to examine RNA and classifications of blood types. The binomial expansion and probability found application in genetics. Our team found this project both energizing and exciting, and we thank Phi Theta Kappa, NSF, and our mentors Mercedes McGowen and Darlene Whitkanack. Joyce Lindstrom: jlindstrom@stchas.edu
[Return to National Science Foundation]
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