CoOrdinated Math-Physics Assessment for Student Success (COMPASS) Assessments on Continuing Math Courses and Attitude Toward Math
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Educational Research and Methods
- Page Count
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20
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--34334
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/34334
- Download Count
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506
Paper Authors
Guangming Yao Clarkson University
Guangming Yao (Associate Professor and Executive Officer, Clarkson University): Professor Yao received her BSc and MS in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from Harbin Normal University and PhD in Computational Mathematics from the University of Southern Mississippi. She joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Clarkson University in 2012. Her research focuses on computational and applied PDEs and radial basis functions and their applications. She has served as a reviewer for Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computing, Journal of Credit Risk, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, Computers and Mathematics with Applications, Applied Mathematical Modelling, Applied Mathematics and Computation and many others. Professor Yao organized regional mathematics conference, the Mathematics Conference and Competition of Northern New York (MCCNNY), for undergraduate and graduate students since 2014 at Clarkson (once every two years). She served as faculty advisor for McNair Program, honors program at Clarkson, and advised many students through direct studies. She also published over a dozen peer reviewed journal papers with undergraduate and graduate students.
Kelly Black
University of Georgia
orcid.org/0000-0003-0952-361X
Kelly Black is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Georgia. His primary interests are in student learning in the introductory mathematics curriculum as well as mathematical modeling in ecological systems.
Michael W. Ramsdell Clarkson University
Michael Ramsdell is an Associate Professor of Physics and Director of First Year Physics at Clarkson University. He has over ten years of experience in the design, implementation, and assessment of laboratory curriculum within introductory physics courses. He has also developed, refined and taught a Pre-Freshman Physics course designed to assist student s with the transition to post-secondary education. He is a Co-Director of the NYS STEP Program, IMPETUS which provides economically disadvantaged students the opportunity to pursue their interest in math and science though educational summer camps, workshops, school-year tutoring and mentoring programs. He has helped provide numerous students and teachers with the opportunity to integrate STEM disciplines using real-world problem solving strategies through teacher/coach training institutes.
Matthew K. Voigt
San Diego State University
orcid.org/0000-0003-0692-0142
Matthew Voigt (He, Him, His) is a mathematics education researcher with focus on calculus and equity in mathematics. He has a PhD in Mathematics and Science Education through the joint doctoral program at San Diego State University and the University of California San Diego.
Kalani Kithuliya Rubasinghe Kattadige Clarkson University
Kalani Rubasinghe is a third year Ph.D. student in Mathematics at Clarkson University, New York and she obtained her Master degree in Mathematics from Clarkson. Her research focuses on numerical solutions for PDEs, using Radial Basis Functions (RBFs).
Wen Li University of California, Los Angeles
Wen Li is an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Los Angele. She is teaching mathematics upper-division courses. She also has several years of experience in teaching lower-division mathematics courses. She received her PhD in Applied Mathematics from Clarkson University.
Abstract
The COMPASS: CoOrdinated Math-Physics Assessment for Student Success program aims to improve students’ understanding of mathematical concepts using physical applications. COMPASS is a first-year calculus course that combines mathematics concepts with physical applications in an effort to improve student understanding of mathematics using their outstanding physics intuitions. The implementation of the COMPASS program is described briefly in this paper. %The COMPASS program was first launched at Clarkson University during fall semester of academic year 2015-2016. We design and experiment this novel calculus/physics instructional program to understanding whether it is possibly to benefit students in STEM disciplines.
In this paper, we compare students’ reports on instructional strategies and beliefs about learning mathematics for COMPASS, COMPASS-eligible and non-COMPASS students during academic year 2017–2018. We track students’ performance in their continuing mathematics courses for the groups from academic year 2015-2016, for which most of the students completed calc 3 and Elementary Differential Equations during academic year 2016-2017. The data we collected shows that students who went through COMPASS program reported positive instructional experiences, increase in interest during their year-long training in COMPASS and they performed well in their continuing mathematics courses, regardless of their initial weaknesses in math prior to attending college.
The study is likely to interest a broad group of engineering education researchers and/or practitioners to disseminate knowledge on engineering teaching and learning since mathematics is a common problem throughout engineering education. In addition, even though the improvement of COMPASS students in continuing math courses are not significant, their slightly better performance shows a great improvement in comparison with their low math test scores as high-risk category group students. The COMPASS program may improve instruction through the development of innovative materials and sound instructional designs.
Yao, G., & Black, K., & Ramsdell, M. W., & Voigt, M. K., & Rubasinghe Kattadige, K. K., & Li, W. (2020, June), CoOrdinated Math-Physics Assessment for Student Success (COMPASS) Assessments on Continuing Math Courses and Attitude Toward Math Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34334
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