Some 10 percent of freshmen fail their math midterms and start scrambling to save their sinking grades before finals, Cal Poly mathematics professor Adrienne Riley said. But the math department has tools and resources to keep them afloat.
Midterms in fall are rough for freshmen because they don’t realize they’re going to have to work pretty hard at a university, she said.
“They’ve probably been good students in high school, maybe didn’t have to study much,” Riley said. “And when they get to college, they assume it’s going to be just as easy.”
The department works to help with any problems students have in math, Riley said. Study groups, workshops and office hours are available to assist students, she said.
Math department resources helped mathematics senior Grace DeTore in her freshman year, she said. DeTore transferred into math from child development during her first year. She took advantage of study groups, workshops and office hours, she said.
“I’ve struggled with every single math class I’ve had,” DeTore said. “What really helped me freshman year was going to study groups.”
Study groups also helped mathematics freshman Erin Griffin. Groups are helpful whenever she goes to them because if her classmate doesn’t understand a concept, she can explain it to them, Griffin said. By explaining it further and helping fellow students understand, it helps solidify the concept in the student’s mind, she said.
“I got a 94 percent on my midterm only due to a couple trivial mistakes,” Griffin said. “I only studied three or four hours by doing problems over and over again.”
The mathematics department also offers workshops to help.
Supplemental Workshops in math help students understand concepts by reinforcing them with group learning, Educational Opportunity Program Academic Adviser Jose Millan, who coordinates the workshops in math, said.
Workshops teach them the study skills they need if they use it the way they’re supposed to, Millan said. The study skills learned in workshops ensure a student has the key to understanding concepts they are learning in class, he said.
The workshops have upper-division students who excelled in math with at least a 3.0 grade point average, Millan said. Students refresh themselves on a specific course in math and become student assistants — or facilitators — for the corresponding workshop.
“Workshops reinforce the math concepts that are being taught by doing additional problems,” Millan said. “A lot of times the problems are going to be more challenging.”
The student facilitators create worksheets or mock quizzes to ensure students are learning the concept, he said.
But this doesn’t always work.
The workshops are supplemental to math classes they’re already taking and because of that, sometimes students won’t want to take on the extra workload, he said.
Each quarter varies but there is a difference in the success rate of students who take the workshop supplemental versus those who only took the math class, he said.
Last spring quarter, 79 percent of students passed their math classes with workshops versus 76 percent who passed without, according to the Student Academic Services website.
In her eight years at Cal Poly, Riley said she has noticed better study habits in students who take advantage of the workshops.
“Students enrolled in workshops tend to do better because they have some guiding in how to study,” Riley said.
Some 94 percent of students thought the Supplemental Workshops in math helped them succeed academically, according to the Student Academic Services website.
DeTore said the workshops helped her pass her classes; she suggests taking advantage of them.
“I enrolled in every workshop for every math class that they’ve offered and they’ve been incredibly helpful,” DeTore said.
Professors have office hours and an interest in making students successful, chair of the mathematics department and professor Joseph Borzellino said.
“Eventually students will come to a point in math where they aren’t getting it,” Borzellino said. “They will hit the brick wall, math will be hard and talking to professors helps.”
The reward comes from that struggle to understand and overcoming it to the point of being able to explain it, Borzellino said. There are resources to help students with that struggle, he said.
Riley has students come into office hours and talk to her about their study habits to see what can be improved upon, she said.
“We talk about the way they’re studying, the time they’re putting in, how they’re studying,” Riley said.
Office hours were incredibly helpful, DeTore said. Meeting with teachers can help get questions answered, she said.
“Making an appointment, you get that one-on-one tutoring session,” DeTore said.
One of the reasons freshmen can have a hard time is because when they come to college, they’re learning how to function in a university, Borzellino said.
Coming to a university involves a huge difference in study time and a lot of extracurricular activities can distract students, he said. Also, this is usually the first time most freshmen have been away from home. This can contribute to freshmen failing.
“They’re learning to be good students by balancing time and being self-motivated, a hurdle they need to overcome in order to be successful in math,” Borzellino said.
Being a good student means showing up for class and taking notes in a way that is helpful, Borzellino said. Students need to get the questions about lecture answered when they arrive, because a lot of math builds on itself. Also, spending a lot time doing homework outside of class helps the student understand the concepts they’re learning, he said.
Students have to understand how to be a college student, and in particular, a college student in a math class, he said. In college, students need to take what they’re learning in lecture and really solidify the concepts on their own time, he said.
Some freshmen students struggle in math because they come to Cal Poly more qualified, Borzellino said, so they start out in more difficult classes.
Ten years ago, more freshmen started in precalculus, now they’re starting in calculus III or even calculus IV, Borzellino said.
Although students may struggle, the failure rates are decreasing in math classes at Cal Poly, he said.
“If you go back a decade ago, D and F rates in calculus classes were around 30 percent,” Borzellino said. “Now we’ve done a lot at Cal Poly overtime to reduce those rates. In some of the beginning calculus classes I think it’s down to 20 percent. The more advanced ones we have are probably down to 15 percent.”
Taking on new study habits because of the different work ethic at Cal Poly is critical, Riley said.
Cal Poly could have a quick course before the start of the school year for first-time freshmen that teaches them how to take notes and study, she said.
“Maybe a class that could address that kind of issue so we don’t have this first dip at the first midterm,” Riley said.
While midterms may be a hard shock, by finals, the majority of students usually pick it up, Riley said.
“Failing once is not a bad thing as long as you change something,” Riley said. “As long as you change the way you’re studying, the hours you’re studying, whatever you’re doing to get a different result. You can learn from failures, everybody fails, but the important thing is to come back from it and then you do succeed.”
Elyse Lopez contributed to this article.