Active learning strategies with positive effects on students’ achievements in undergraduate mathematics education

Abstract

The paper describes active learning strategies used in undergraduate college algebra and business calculus courses. There are a variety of active learning strategies described in the literature. We wanted to implement a few that together, satisfy the key characteristics of active learning strategies. The active learning strategies described in this paper are, interactive presentation style, group-work with discussion and feedback, volunteer presentations of solutions by groups, raise students’ learning interest towards specific topics, involve students in mathematical explorations, experiments, and projects, and last but not least, continuous motivation and engagement of students. We analyse the relationship between the average results of 27 college algebra and business calculus sections and the effects of the level of use of these active learning strategies. We demonstrate that the application of these strategies has a positive effect on the average results of the sections and the passing rates of the students.

KEYWORDS:

• Active learning
• group-work
• collaborative learning
• linear regression
• undergraduate mathematics education

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their special thanks to Marta Civil, Scott Clark, Tina Deemer, Jennifer Eli, Deborah Hughes Hallett, Robert Indik, and Douglas Ulmer for their recommendations and advice regarding the AL-strategies discussed in this paper. The authors are obliged to Jennifer Eli for the scientific, scholarly review of the application to the Human Research IRB and Douglas Ulmer, Head of the Department of Mathematics, for approving the application. The authors are grateful to Cheryl Ekstrom for the preparation of the fully anonymized and de-identified data that was used in the statistical analysis. We are thankful to our students who provided their consent to include their opinions in publications and to the students of the School of Art who gave permission to use their artworks in the Art-Math project and their consents to include their artworks and mention their names in publications connected to education.The authors are grateful for the comments, recommendations, and critics of the referees. Their constructive suggestions were very helpful in improving the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).