In high school, I took one semester of Pre-Calculus. It was the highest math I reached. I don’t think I ever received less than an -A in any math classes. I ended up only taking the one semester out of two because that class switched over to a long-distance learning class and I found it pretty annoying. I already had two years of math above what I needed to graduate, so I took another class instead of finishing Pre-Calculus.
At the Art Institute of Las Vegas, I had to take College Algebra. Here is a little history of how math has devolved at AILV:
1. Before placed in to a math class, you took their placement exam to see where you would start in English and Math. There were three levels of math: Transitional Math, Pre-College Algebra, and College Algebra. Where you placed was dependent on how you scored. For graduation, you had to pass College Algebra.
2. Near the turn of 2012 to 2013, the school dropped all of the math classes and placed a “Math Lab.” There will be more on this Math Lab later in this post.
3. Students who were in Transitional Math and Pre-College Algebra were told about halfway through the quarter before the change to the Math Lab that what they are doing is essentially worthless. I knew one of the students in one of those math classes. I was in the computer lab at the time and he came in all shades of angry over the fact that he paid to take that class only to find out it was essentially worthless because no credit was given for the Transitional Math and Pre-College Algebra classes. Sure, he may have learned a few things, but it ultimately meant nothing if he would have just had to take the math lab…not to mention they wouldn’t be refunded for the class.
4. Now, students must take the Math Lab. It is in a classroom with a bunch of other students, but you work at your own pace. The very first thing you do is take a placement exam that is about 40 questions, and this tells you how many of the modules (there were 11 when I took the class) you have to do. There is an instructor in the class who is there to answer any questions. You have two quarters to finish the class. Whatever you don’t finish in the first quarter, you finish in the second quarter (I know this has been a little rough on students who have the summer/winter breaks since those are 3-4 weeks long instead of one week).
When I took the class, I was SHOCKED at how poorly the majority of the students tested in the placement exam. I had been out of high school for 10 years and I passed five out of the eleven modules. There was only one student that did better than me by passing six modules. There were a few students (they looked fresh out of high school) who failed all of the modules.
The classes are simple. You can do homework anywhere, anytime as long as you have a computer and internet access, but you have to take the tests in each module while in the classroom (although, students can go in to other math classes to take exams as long as it is cleared with the instructor). We were always warned that we shouldn’t cheat and that we would get caught, but if one wanted to cheat, it was so easy because the instructor would only get up and walk the class maybe once a day. I’ve also seen other math instructors roam the halls during classes.
I don’t know if this is worth complaining about, but the videos look like they were filmed in the 1980’s.
Since I really never used any math I learned in high school, I blew through this course in 6 weeks. I wasn’t focused on retaining the information – just doing well enough to pass. I actually was on the final module (I’ll admit, I spend a while figuring out the final module – quadratic equations) when the instructor pretty much came up to me and told me to just take the final exam. I wasn’t comfortable with it, but I did it anyways.
The final exam only consisted of a couple questions per module. It was very similar to the placement module, just with a few questions that seemed harder. The only problem with the placement exam is that it is very inaccurate. I did spend a little time going over modules that I supposedly tested out of. It was about 40 questions that covered all eleven modules.
If one wasn’t aiming to get an A in the class, one could possibly and simply just not even do well with a couple modules (and save a LOT of time) and take the final exam and do well in there and call it a day. Math seems to be, with most people, a hit or miss, so they could save a lot of time understanding what they can grasp and work on what they kind of grasp and almost skip what they don’t understand.
In the end, I figured College Algebra would present a challenge. I thought it would be hard, especially since I really didn’t want to take it. High school math was much harder than what I had to go through at The Art Institute. I remember having to work hard in high school, and it wasn’t the case most of the time with my experience in College Algebra.
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