How Do You Teach Basic College Math?
Although colleges design placement tests to sort students into appropriate math courses, these tests are limited in scope and often funnel a wide range of students into basic college math. This alone makes college math a difficult course to teach or tutor. Furthermore, although basic college math shares a lot of material with high school algebra, the college course moves a lot more quickly and often requires more depth in the work. Therefore, it takes a particular course of action to successfully teach basic college math. Address the students’ fear or lack of fear. For those expecting the class to be an easy rerun of high school, explain the differences between the classes and the higher expectations. However, many students end up having to take basic college math because they developed a fear of math. These students need to understand your goal is to make the material more understandable, not less. On the very first day, give an in-depth assessment test of the skills and concepts that
