Statistics Liberal Arts Math Pasadena City College Motivation

Statistics Liberal Arts Math Pasadena City College

Motivation & History

Current Curriculum CALCULUS

Does the curriculum serve our population?

Create a new track for SLAM Completion

Backwards Design What math does a SLAM student need? Statistics Quantitative Literacy 1 Quantitative Literacy 2 Liberal Arts Math Real Life

SLAM vs. STEM Statistics Quantitative Literacy 2 Quantitative Literacy 1 Beginning Algebra Intermediate Algebra Liberal Arts Math STEM Track

Creating Learning Experiences • Discovery-based activities • Using Manipulatives to understand mathematical ideas • Excel Labs to both explore concepts and analyze data • Projects – Tracking Expenses – Stock Project – Home Buying Project

Created our own course materials

QL 2: Course Content

Statistics • Measures of Center and Weighted Mean • Measuring Spread • Graphical Representations of Data • Correlation and Estimating the Best-fit Line

Finance • Simple vs Compound Interest • Payday Loans • Credit Cards • Annuities • Amortized Loans • Student Loans • Home Loans

Probability • Events, Simple Events, Combining sets • Counting – Fundamental Counting Principle, n. Pr, n. Cr • Two Way Frequency Tables • Expected Value

Geometry • Areas of Rectangles, Triangles, Parallelograms, and Trapezoids discoverybased activity • Investigating the effects on Perimeter, Area, and Volume when changing edge length • Fermi Problem (estimation)

Fermi Problem

Science • Solving Literal Equations • Units and Dimensional Analysis • Absolute vs Percent Error • Linear, Exponential, and Logarithmic functions & rates of growth • Scientific Notation and Sig Figs • Variation

Standard Algebra Content Excluded Factoring Matrices & Linear Systems Quadratics & Polynomials Rational Expressions

QL 1: Content and Approach

Similar Content to a Standard Prealgebra class (but better) Old and out of date New and hot!

Content • Patterns • Integers • Fractions • Decimals • Percent • Graphing and Lines

Contextualized

Experiential/Activity-based Less lecturing More of students doing math

Lots of Manipulatives

Solving Word Problems Everyday 24

Discovery-based Learning 25

Metacognition and Affective Domain 26

Critical Thinking 27

Student Comments ² “This thing is hard, but I love it!” ² “It seems like I’m learning the same stuff in a regular class, but I actually see how it’s useful. ” ² “I’m SOOOOO glad that PCC has finally realized that we are all individuals and that we learn differently. ” ² “This is more than math, this is real life!” ² “F**K ME, I GOT IT!!!”