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For the third year in a row, Utah Valley University is offering a free online math refresher course designed to help students who haven’t recently taken any math courses prepare for placement exams and meet graduation requirements. The seven-week course kicks off June 8 and is designed to offer students much more than simply a review of math.
“Anybody can go online and find math content,” said Keith White, an associate professor of developmental mathematics, “but this course includes assessment tools to help students identify their specific needs. Based on those assessments, students are guided to certain refresher tools, which are customized for each student.
We also have chat hours and discussion boards. We work to build a sense of community so students feel like they’re working together and they have resources available to help them.”
Learning math is “kind of like riding a bike,” White said. “What you’ve learned in the past and forgotten will come back to you. But it’s also not like riding a bike, because what you have learned doesn’t always come back as quickly as it does when you hop back on a bike. But we’ve found that with some review, our students typically do substantially better on placement tests. Higher scores on placement tests mean fewer required math courses in college.”
The course is organized into five modules — one focused on arithmetic, three focused on algebra, and one on trigonometry — with one optional statistics module. Students take a pre-test at the beginning of each module; the pre-test determines whether a student has mastered that topic or needs to review it. “If review work is needed, students receive a customized learning path that identifies where they need to go in the course,” said White. “This maximizes efficiency and ensures that study time is spent where it’s needed most.”
Although students can proceed through the course at their own pace (coursework is available throughout the year), the chat rooms, discussion boards, and assistance from White and two teacher assistants are available June 8 through July 28.
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Source: Daily Herald
