Math has been known to give some students, a hard time, and now the Cerritos College Math Department has heard the student voice and implemented more 9-week courses.

The department is looking to make different pathways for all majors to give students the math skills they need, without reaching a breaking point.

English professor Frank Mixson who is heavily involved in the initiative spoke about the project.

Mixson said,”The state is encouraging colleges to implement a number of evidence based practices, so we are going about implementing some of those practices.”

Mixson went on to say that there would be three pathways:

1) STEM majors, the high math pathway

2) Social science with stats majors, the middle pathway

3) English and literature major areas, the lower pathway

“In those pathways, they are redesigning courses to make them more supportive of student engagement.” he said.

In fact for non STEM majors, the pathways would include less algebra and the stats path would be more statistical reasoning.

This initiative would also help students move along in their math courses by still giving a placement test, but also taking into consideration the student’s high school transcripts.

Depending on which one is higher, the student would get to choose the higher of the two if they wanted.

One of the requirements of the pathway is to attend a three hour study group a week for seven out of the nine weeks, where students don’t necessarily have to study, but may also just choose to do homework.

Another plan in the initiative is to help get students through more than one course a semester.

Math department chair Angela Conley went over what a compressed schedule would look like.

“Math 60 would be the first nine weeks and Math 80 would be the second nine weeks, in one semester you can bang out two classes.” she said.

The classes would be nine week, four days a week, and they are being set up that way due to the student success in those types of courses.

“We have had better student retention in those classes, […], students have said by taking a four day a week math class, it’s made their study habits better” Conley continued.

She went on to say that students would have more help by having a peer tutor, workshops and resources available for any assistance needed.

The plan is to include Math 40 in the program in the future.

The goal is to get students through their college level math and English done so they can move on in their education.