University of Idaho officials knew their introductory math classes weren’t working. 

A large percentage of students were failing after the pandemic, impacting graduation and retention rates, the university said. 

So the administration decided to invest in a change. They hired Tim Boester last year as director of introductory mathematics.

He, along with four new math professors, shifted to a new model of instruction, reworked the curriculum and classrooms for one course, and has others in his sights.

This fall is the first time students experienced the new model. Results are still pending, but there are early signs the changes are working. 

“You don’t celebrate at halftime, but midterm grades came in and we saw some pretty significant improvements,” Boester said.

Student struggles call old model into question

For the last 20 years at the U of I, students in intermediate algebra, Math 108, and college algebra, Math 143, haven’t spent much time in the classroom, Boester said.

Instead, the courses operated on an emporium model where students were required to spend a certain number of hours per week in a computer lab doing assignments. Once a week, the class would meet in person. 

“What happened in class wasn’t a lot of instruction,” Boester said. “The instruction was, ‘Come to the computer labs.’” 

Everything seemed to be going fine until the COVID-19 pandemic. Then there was a dropoff in success rates for students, he said. 

Here are the percentages of students who scored a D or lower in Math 108:

• 2019: 34%. 
• 2020: 36.8%.
• 2021: 50.3%.
• 2022: 49.3%.
• 2023: 42.3%.

Students are placed into these algebra classes a few different ways, mostly based on standardized test scores. Math 143, which also saw an increased fail rate at 41% in 2023, and Analytic Trigonometry are the two courses that fit the university-wide requirement for a general education math class. 

If a student who needs multiple math courses can’t get placed into Math 143 they have to take the remedial course, Math 108. The majority of the students in both courses are first-year students. 

While students have numerous resources like videos, online notebooks, and practice problems without the teaching and community they had in high school, it felt like less support, Boester said. 

“We had a lot of students who were struggling and I think a big part of the reason is they felt that they were just sort of tackling them by themselves,” Boester said.

Investing in the ‘why’

When Boester arrived at the U of I, he found that there was significant overlap between the two courses.

He worked with the current faculty to reshape Math 108. They reduced the number of topics covered in the course but increased expectations of students. 

Instead of feeling procedural, Boester said the class now focuses on why math concepts work the way they do and asks students to be able to explain the why to their peers. 

“In class we have a lot of group work,” Boester said. “Here is a problem, let’s think about why it behaves this way.” 

Classes shifted back to having in-person course meetings where professors gave instruction. The department hired four new instructors for a total of nine in the department. Courses meet either three times a week for 50 minutes or twice a week for 75 minutes. 

The department also switched to the ALEX, an adaptive homework platform, from publisher McGraw Hill over their prior textbook. The adaptive program gives students problems in areas they need to work on and skips areas they have already mastered.

They replaced the computers in the computer labs and added back in tables and chairs for students to work together. The cost of those improvements totaled just under $170,000. 

“This is a pretty serious investment by the university,” Boester said. 

While it’s too early to tell how successful the first semester has been for the new Math 108 model, Boester said midterm grades were positive. The team has already begun reworking the Math 143 curriculum.