USF wows math students with technology to help them pass

Math professor Fran Hopf knows the panic some students feel when they hear the phrase "quadratic equation" and see something like this:

F(x) = 2x² - 8x + 3.

Scary.

These students have already had trouble with math, Hopf says, "terrible, negative experiences."

So imagine how they perform when their instruction is delivered mostly in mass lectures, supplemented only by loosely structured study labs.

Having seen many bewildered faces in her lectures over the years, Hopf is an eager participant in a pilot project at the University of South Florida. It's testing a new way to teach college math.

It still uses a lecture, but the 250 students involved spend most of their time in computer labs with interactive programs offering half a dozen ways to learn the material.

They can watch a video of the lecture. They can watch someone explaining a problem and working it out step by step, and pause it when they need time to think.

"We're trying to teach them how to teach themselves," Hopf says.

It started about a year and a half ago after USF officials realized that thousands of students were having to take required math classes again and again and not graduating on time.

Only about 60 percent of USF students were passing the lower level math classes like college algebra, said a statewide report published that year.

"The president and provost were not happy," said Marcus McWaters, chairman of the USF mathematics and statistics department. "They said, 'Do what you have to do, but fix it.'"

It costs the university money when students take five and six years to graduate, McWaters said, but beyond that, bad math education is bad for the country.

"That's what everybody's been talking about, the fact that the U.S. is slipping further behind the rest of the world in math and science and these quantitative areas," he said.

A Harvard University study last year showed that even high-achieving U.S. high school students were losing ground in math internationally.

"Results for many states are at the level of developing countries," it said, with Florida ranking next to Israel, Italy, Latvia, Portugal and Turkey.

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Hopf stands in front of an auditorium full of students. Several straggle in 10 to15 minutes late.

She asks a question involving an equation with x's, h's and k's.

Silence. A few murmurs. After a while, a small voice answers from the back.

"What was that?" Hopf asks. "I think I heard the answer."

Every now and then, Hopf asks the students to answer with their "clickers," devices they can use to log responses to multiple-choice questions. A bar graph projected onto a screen at the front of the room shows most students are keeping up, though not all.

Students get credit for just clicking, more credit for clicking correctly.

As Hopf walks up and down the aisles, she jots equations on a hand-held digital pad that projects whatever she writes on the screen. It allows her to keep an eye on students and talk to them face-to-face throughout the lesson.

Students start drifting out of the 75-minute class about 15 minutes before it ends. But afterward, Hopf is exuberant that a few students were bold enough to raise their hands and call out answers.

"You typically don't get that."

The uptick in participation is small but significant, Hopf says. She credits having the clickers and her electronic pad, and the course redesign McWaters began putting together in 2009.

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The redesign is based on the work of the National Center for Academic Transformation, a New York nonprofit that focuses on using technology to improve college-level teaching.

At USF, students attend a lecture where the professor goes over the concepts and equations they'll be covering that week. But that's it. They spend most of the nearly four-hour class time, doing the week's assignments.

The practice is the key, McWaters says.

"Math is the kind of thing that only sinks in with practice."

The software for this pilot gives the students "an amazing number of tools," to do their assignments, he says.

"They can read it, watch it, listen to it, whatever they need to learn it," Hopf says.

When they take quizzes, they see their scores immediately and find out not only what they missed, but why.

"They get instant feedback, so they can correct themselves right then and there," Hopf said.

And if none of this works, they have a human option. The professor and student assistants are on hand in the labs to talk students through problems. Students have red plastic cups at their desks to turn over when they need help.

On top of all this, Hopf records her upcoming class lecture, and she quizzes the students to verifying they watched it. She thinks this is why they're getting more involved in class, she says.

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They earn points for everything, clicking at the lecture, coming to the lab, completing their homework.

"That's what it takes," McWaters says.

"You absolutely have to require them to engage. You have to compel them to participate. But when you do, you see results."

It works for USF freshman Ashley Pritcher.

"I like it because if you don't feel comfortable asking questions during the lecture, then you get an individual one-on-one," she said.

"You don't have to go home and struggle with the homework by yourself."

McWaters tried a version of his new approach last year, with the lecture followed by tutored paper-and-pencil homework sessions. He got a 68 percent pass rate.

He tried it again with computers in the lab, and 74 percent of the students passed.

This semester, he and Hopf are using new computers and software in a room dedicated to the project. Students are assigned to two labs a week, but the room is open most evenings, with tutors on hand, for students who need more study time.

Paul Dosal, head of the USF Office of Student Success, which gave McWaters $45,000 to open the lab this semester, says he's proud of its work.

"The math department is ahead of others at the university" in its efforts to help students succeed.

Still, the USF math project is small compared to similar ones around the country.

Virginia Tech has a 550-computer lab in a renovated department store. The University of Central Florida has 315 in a place it calls the MALL, Math Assistance and Learning Lab.

McWaters hopes eventually to take over part of the first floor of the USF physics building and fill it with 120 computers, six times what he has now.

Dosal said that will depend on the pilot's results this semester.

But McWaters will need more if he's going to reach the 1,600 other students who take lower level math classes at USF every semester.

He's seen it work, and he's hooked.

"It's really nice to know you've opened a window they just weren't going to open on their own."