Developmental Mathematics and its Applications (DevMap) Project

Students who attend two-year colleges often arrive on campus lacking the basic skills necessary to succeed in college-level work. This is a particularly serious problem for students in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology (SMET) programs, who may have significant deficits in their mathematics backgrounds but high aspirations for their future success. Students in this situation need to build both their mathematical skills and confidence in their ability to solve challenging problems in order to succeed in the mathematics-intensive programs they have selected. We propose to develop a two-semester program that will offer an alternative approach to the elementary and intermediate algebra courses currently taught at most two- and four-year colleges. Students completing this program will be prepared to enter a course in precalculus.
At the 1997 National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) workshop, "Beyond Eighth Grade," industry representatives emphasized the need for "systems thinking" that enables employees to recognize complexities inherent in situations subject to multiple inputs and diverse constraints. In addition, science-based fields such as agricultural biotechnology require technicians who are able to formulate a problem in terms of relevant factors and design an experiment to determine the influence of those various factors. Yet, most developmental programs in mathematics, at both two- and four-year colleges, offer students what amounts to a replication of the high school mathematics curriculum they either studied and forgot or never studied. We now have a chance for real and positive change. Both the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards, published in 1989, and Crossroads in Mathematics: Standards for Introductory College Mathematics Before Calculus, published by the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) in 1995, advocate an integrated approach to mathematics content. Given students' needs in developmental mathematics, the vision of the AMATYC Standards, and COMAP's experience, we propose to create a one-year sequence, Developmental Mathematics and its Applications (DevMap). We believe that there are several benefits to the DevMap approach:
1. The program will not be divided into topics called algebra, geometry, intermediate algebra, and trigonometry, although all the major concepts in those courses will be covered.
2. The applications-based curriculum will appeal to mature students who choose to pursue postsecondary education; the applications can be drawn from areas in which students may find themselves working or from situations that they recognize from their daily lives.
3. Solving the problems posed in DevMap will call for integrating technology in a natural way as compared to the "drill-and-practice" use of technology currently found in many developmental mathematics programs.