The Instructional Experiences of Latinx Community College Students in a Developmental Mathematics Course Taught by an Adjunct Faculty at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Developmental Mathematics;Student Experiences;Mathematics Instruction;Latinx Students;Community College;Education;Social Sciences;Educational Studies

Cawley, AnneRosario-Ramos, Enid Marie ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Developmental Mathematics;    Student Experiences;    Mathematics Instruction;    Latinx Students;    Community College;    Education;    Social Sciences;    Educational Studies;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/145887/acawley_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

In spite of the high failure rate of Latinx students in developmental courses taught at community colleges in the United States, little is known about how mathematical instruction contributes to this problem. Less is known about how adjunct instructors teach these courses or about their students’ accounts of their experiences. This dissertation investigated instruction in a developmental mathematics course taught by an adjunct faculty at a Hispanic-serving community college by (1) describing the student-instructor, student-student, instructor-content, and student-content interactions (Cohen, Raudenbush, & Ball, 2003); (2) documenting student perceptions of those interactions, their instructional experiences; and (3) analyzing the way in which these varied interactions and perceptions could be explained by the wealths students brought to the course (Yosso, 2005) and the systems in which students were situated (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; 1994). Three modes of instruction were enacted in the course, lecture (the most common), individual student work time, and student presentations. The instructor led the student-instructor interactions by checking, correcting, or validating students’ work. Student-student interactions occurred only when students compared answers. The instructor-content interactions revealed mathematics as a disjoint set of problems solved with prescribed sets of steps. The student-content interactions consisted of practicing work already demonstrated by the instructor. Students’ instructional experiences described a caring instructor who wanted them to succeed and hoped for more time to explore and practice problems and less time watching their instructor lecture, more interaction with peers, and more support to create a classroom community. The microsystems in which students were situated—school, work, and home—influenced one another; various exosystems—instructor’s teaching experience, supports available from the mathematics department for adjunct faculty, adjunct instructor’s out of class obligations, and departmental course scheduling—had direct and indirect effects on instruction and on the students’ instructional experiences and mediated the ways that students and the instructor adapted to and interacted with each other during instruction. Students’ reported levels of aspirational, navigational, and social wealth interacted in ways that seem to influence their course outcomes: students with narrow aspirational wealth but broad navigational and social wealth knew how to find supports and balance the demands of the course whereas students with broader aspirational wealth and narrower navigational and social wealth thought that by attending the course and doing what was expected would result in positive outcomes. These demonstrations of cultural wealth aligned with the course outcomes: students in the first group who subverted the classroom cultural norms and pressed for changes passed; students in the second group who tended to align to and accept the classroom cultural norms failed. Thus, merely attending class and doing the work as instructors ask students to do may not be sufficient to pass a developmental class. The indirect influences of the exosystems require students to develop broader levels of social and navigational capital in order to be successful; this can be done by repeating college courses, an undesirable path or by providing explicit support to broaden students’ navigational and social wealth. Engaging students during instruction could support these efforts, making explicit the supports and resources necessary to succeed. Finally, mathematics departments might need to re-evaluate the content of developmental courses and provide more and varied opportunities for adjunct faculty to receive support while teaching these courses.