Blank

This is the third academic year in which I have set out to explore the demand side philosophy when applied to teaching and learning. The first year was 2003-2004 at St Paul College in Virginia, the second year was as Chair of Mathematics at the very small college Talladega College in Alabama. This year I have taken a position as Associate Professor at Lane College, a quality HBCU having 2000 students.

The experience last year was within a college that was dysfunctional in almost all respects, but perhaps not so different as any other small college. In fact, one has to constantly remember that dysfunctional systems are linked together. Colleges have to address behavioral issues and issues related to student preparation for college by high schools that are dysfunctional. The social system is not perfect either.

We again recall the recent Report from the Department of Education to the President of the United States.

Foundation for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel; March 2008, U.S. Department of Education

“This Panel, diverse in experience, expertise, and philosophy, agrees broadly that the delivery system in mathematics education—the system that translates mathematical knowledge into value and ability for the next generation—is broken and must be fixed. This is not a conclusion about teachers or school administrators, or textbooks or universities or any other single element of the system. It is about how the many parts do not now work together to achieve a result worthy of this country’s values and ambitions.”

This year my situation is far better than last year, and there was a new opportunity to explore what demand side really means. In the Fall of 2008, the pure lifting strategy was employed in my teaching of five sections of freshman mathematics.

In late September I started the first round of testing. As discussed in the description of the lifting strategy, the blank paper test allows the student to decide what he or she wants to present as a means to represent what that individual understands or does not understand about the curriculum.

I also begin the development, with five other faculty members, of foundational proposals to NSF and Department of Education for program support. Because of the monopoly that supply side theory has over demand side theory, we decided to focus on research focused on demonstrating outcome metrics. A proposal was not developed by the faculty because of uncertainty over outcomes.

The first results indicated 80% of all attending students were writing clearly stated essays and expositions of topics from the text book and lectures. No student received less than an 70 (low C) by midterm. One of the reviewing faculty commented that the tests themselves showed obvious commitment on the part of the students to communicate to the professor, unlike what his test showed. His tests often had marks that were not readable. In no case where any of the blank papers tests un-readable.

For example; unlike the multiple choice test, or even the problem sets where the work is shown, the blank paper test should be read in a context that is individualized. But individualization is exactly where the supply side theory makes its classical error; supply side defines the universal often by re framing the particular in a way that suits the suppler.

Example: The current educational system needs to prove successful outcome metrics even when it is objectively clear that all aspects of the system are failing, and in many cases are harming the individual student. So the testing process measures the student performance in ways that drive measurement and pedagogy towards a ratio, the "grade", based mostly on memorized "skill".

September 27th, 2008