Highline College Corequisite Mathematics Initiative
Project Description
The Highline College Mathematics Corequisite Initiative is designed to increase the number of students who earn their first college credit in Math by developing and scaling corequisite versions of three high-enrollment, transferable introductory college-level math courses (Introduction to Statistics, Precalculus, and College Algebra). The design of the corequisite courses advances the Guided Pathways work underway at Highline College by contextualizing the instructional materials in corequisite courses through the use of examples and methods relevant to students’ program of study and providing increased Guided Pathways support around advising and building students’ capacity as learners through teaching metacognitive skills. Developing culturally competent teaching pedagogy and consulting with practitioners who have success with low-income, first-generation, and students of color will be essential to the development of the curriculum. The funding provided by College Spark Washington will support the development and implementation of program for onboarding instructional staff to teach corequisite courses and will provide resources to broaden the impact of the MCI project through evaluation and dissemination efforts. Our project coordinator is Barbara Hunter.
Design of Highline Corequisite Mathematics Courses
We opted to design our corequisite math courses using a cohort model with expended credit hours (double-time) and embedded remediation. Students enroll in 5-credits of college-level mathematics and a 5-credit support course. A single instructor teaches both courses typically in a 2-hour block. . The corequisite format has allowed us to better serve many of our campus subgroups. Recently, we are exploring a partnership with ABE/ESL faculty to leverage I-BEST as a model to best support our students and to reduce the cost of the course to students. In spring of 2019 and 2020, corequisite statistics was tailored to serve Highline College’s cultural learning communities (UMOJA, Puente, and TriO). In winter term 2020, a section of corequisite statistics served the Somali cohort of Highline College’s Early Childhood Education program. Click here to view our website devoted to advising about our quarterly corequisite offerings, including an information video and downloadable flyer.
As of winter term 2021, we are offering two sections of corequisite introduction to statistics (MathP 146) and one section each of corequisite college algebra (MathP 111) and corequisite precalculus (MathP 141).
Evaluation Results
How are we doing? Our corequisite grant team engages in quarterly evaluation of corequisite mathematics at Highline and the results look very promising. Our evaluation team consists of Babie Hunter, and Drs. Helen Burn and Terry Meerdink. Our evaluation plan includes collecting and analyzing the following data:
- Course pass rates (aggregate and disaggregated by race/ethnicity)
- Analysis of how corequisite students do in follow-on science courses
- Results from our end-of-term student surveys, with baseline comparison
- Results of an assessment project using common final questions, with baseline comparison
We are happy to share any of our instructional or evaluation materials and are always interested in collaborating with other colleges around this exciting mathematics initiative. You can contact us at the emails below.
We are grateful to College Spark Washington for the generous support they provided for this project. Their funding has been crucial to the success of the project.
We love to collaborate, so please don’t hesitate to contact one of us to discuss corequisite mathematics!
Barbara Hunter (project coordinator): bhunter@highline.edu
Helen Burn (corequisite instructor and project evaluator): hburn@highline.edu