College students are still struggling with basic math. Professors blame the pandemic
College students are still struggling with basic math. Professors blame the pandemic
U.S. colleges are searching for solutions as they see alarming numbers of students arrive with gaps in their math skills.
Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow.
HS math teacher here. A lot of these problems existed prior to the pandemic. Parents making excuses for kids. Teachers making excuses for kids to keep parents and admin off their backs. Kids too reliant on calculators to develop "number-sense". Parents perpetuating the myth of the "math gene" they don't have because they failed at the "new math " of the 1970s, etc. The list goes on and on. The whole thing where ELA/Social Studies/History/etc. teachers are struggling with AI like ChatGPT? We went through that when Photomath and the like were released. The shortcuts you take in math WILL catch up with you.
That being said, maturity plays a HUGE part. A dedicated math student will struggle, but won't take shortcuts. They are better for it. The only thing that has changed is that shortcuts are much easier to take and are much more readily available. I cannot count how many shortcuts I took as a teenager, only to realize later that I F$#@! up long-term with my learning journey. Just look at any community college. Students that were "bad at math" suddenly have the realization that if they put in the effort, then the intellectual and/or GPA dividends will pay off in spades.
The pandemic made everything worse, but students struggled with math as long as I have been alive. As someone who loved science and math stuff outside school, but hated it with a passion in school, this text really put my thoughts into words as to why :
Lockhart's Lament: https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
TLDR: It is taught wrong.
I struggled with certain math concepts that I should have learned in high school because my school district had low expectations and failed to prepare me for college math. I also was unprepared for grad school math because undergrad failed to prepare me cause it was so dumbed down. This has been a fundamental issue for a long time. All of this was over a decade ago.
Math was a big issue for me, and all the colleges in CA were shutting down any math classes lower than college algebra. I barely made it into the beginning and intermediate algebra classes before they shut them down.
What they do now if funnel all the students who don't test into college algebra into "college math topics" which is an array of real-life mathematics that you'd come scross, like voting types and loans/interest rates. Which is a good thing to have as a class, but wouldn't have helped me get my degree in drafting.
It's a real good thing khan academy exsists.
sports and factories ain't need no math by god! USA! we got to the moon first everyone else gets our sloppy seconds MURICA! Jesus didn't heal with fractions
living in the us is like watching Rome burning albeit slowly
I had to student teach secondary mathematics in october of 2020.
My host teacher was very up-to-date on online learning platforms (like pear deck and desmos) so i got to teach while learning these programs and making lessons with someone very knowledgeable with this. We also had 30% IEP students but also had a special education teacher so that helped a lot as well.
But otherwise most of the teachers were unprepared to teach themselves.
If you used manipulatives which i deem necessary to visualize fractions you were out of luck :(
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