Contribution to Book
Novel gateway stay/add policy used to increase student success rates in an introductory circuits class
Proceedings of the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
(2017)
Abstract
Students were made to earn at least 90% on eight automatically graded (using MyOpenMath) online homework assignments to either remain enrolled (stay) or get permission to enroll (add) in a blended-instruction introduction to circuit analysis class. While this stay/add policy has caused some controversy, it was the only effective treatment to decrease the DFW rate (percentage of students who earn a D, F, unauthorized withdrawal or authorized withdrawal in one section of a course) in the regular semester offerings of the course. The DFW rate before this treatment was typically around 35% and as high as 53%. The DFW rate dropped to 17% for the same instructor after the gateway assignment policy was implemented. The DFW rate remained lower (19% and 26%) even when new (no prior teaching experience), part time faculty taught the class with the same materials, and stay/add policy. While other treatments that were tried such as making the class activities more realistic, flipped classroom, I-clickers, changing the pre-requisite from D- to C for the pre-requisite physics course, enforcing the differential equation co/pre-requisite, and switching the flow of the course to “impedance first”, did not decrease the DFW rate, they did lead to increased student learning.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2017
Publisher
IEEE
ISBN
978-1-5090-5920-1
DOI
10.1109/FIE.2017.8190600
Publisher Statement
Presented at the 2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), October 2017, Indianapolis, IN.
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Citation Information
David W Parent. "Novel gateway stay/add policy used to increase student success rates in an introductory circuits class" Proceedings of the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_parent/40/