Redesigning Developmental and Corequisite Math Courses at Manchester University

The Situation

Manchester University is a small liberal arts university in Indiana with traditional college aged, residential students. Students were getting stuck in the developmental courses. Historically, 27% of students received D, F, or W and 13% left the university immediately following that semester even though their program allowed time to successfully complete the course in the future. Additionally, a high proportion of students of color were placed into developmental courses.

The Process

A cross-campus team was engaged to implement new methods for placement, scheduling, and advising for incoming students. Math faculty were engaged specifically to roll out the redesigned developmental and corequisite math courses. These were the changes implemented:

• The developmental course (Basic Mathematics) was removed as an option.
• HS GPA and planned study area used to place students, rather than placement test.
• Pedagogy was improved with increased active and contextualized learning.
• A corequisite was added to some sections including Statistics. Students with a high school GPA < 2.7 were required to take the corequisite with the course.
• A culture of using data with a PowerBI dashboard and meeting with a cross-campus team regularly was instilled to drive lasting positive change.

The Results

Using HS GPA rather than placement test resulted in fewer students in the developmental course and more students taking college level math. 

Despite having more students in college level math, the pass rate was not affected (78.9% historically vs 78.3% in fall 2022). Pedagogical changes implemented contributed to a higher pass rate.

With the implemented changes in placement, more students were admitted into college level math and they were still successful!