The Opportunity Institute and LearningWorks are excited to have hosted the fourth webinar in a series exploring how math policies can support transitions to and through college hosted by The Opportunity Institute Fellow Pamela Burdman.
Webinar Recording - Quantitative Leap! Webinar 4: Seizing Twelfth Grade to Improve Math Readiness: Senior-Year Transition Courses
October 27, 11:00am-12:15pm Pacific (2:00pm-3:15pm Eastern)
Faced with high proportions of students needing remedial math courses in college, education systems across the country are prioritizing the goal of improving college readiness. Approaches include both strengthening K12 instruction and better aligning K12 and postsecondary expectations. One relatively new strategy that combines both of these approaches and links postsecondary institutions and K12 schools is designing new courses to make more of the senior year. These senior-year transition courses aim to ensure students are ready for the math demands of college.
In California, the issue is especially salient as the state invests $6 million to develop new senior-year math courses and the Cal State system considers making senior-year math an admissions requirement. Join us to hear from researchers and practitioners about evidence on English transition courses in English, as well as more recent efforts to implement math transition courses in California, Tennessee, West Virginia, and other states and success to date.
Host:
Pamela Burdman, Education Policy Analyst; Opportunity Institute Fellow
Featuring:
Neal Finkelstein, Senior Research Scientist, WestEd
Angela Boatman, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education, Vanderbilt University
Elisabeth Barnett, Senior Research Associate, Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University
Pitt Turner, Mathematics Professor, Sierra College
Background Documents
- Improving the Transition to College: Estimating the Impact of High School Transition Courses on Short-Term College Outcomes
- What We Know About Transition Courses
- Implementation of High School-to-College Transition Courses in Four States
- Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support (SAILS)
- EAP Senior Math Course
- Evaluation of the Expository Reading and Writing Course
The Quantitative Leap! series of webinars hosted by the Opportunity Institute and LearningWorks explores how mathematics policies can support the transition from high school to college. The series is designed around host Pamela Burdman’s Quantitative Leap! policy brief, which recommended three strategies for improving college readiness in math: (1) revising mathematics requirements to ensure their fairness and relevance, (2) adopting new placement policies to address the limitations of commonly-used placement exams, and (3) improving the quantity, quality, and variety of twelfth-grade mathematics courses.
If you missed the first three webinars in the series, you can find them here:
Webinar 1 on state-level efforts to transform postsecondary mathematics
Webinar 2 on new placement policies to address limitations of commonly-used placement tests
Webinar 3 on the links between high school math course-taking and college readiness