Courseshelp to 'catch up' students

It is the time of year when many students realize the mistakes they made a couple months ago upon signing up for classes -- and the add/drop process begins.\nStudents rush to their given advisers, most dropping out of their math classes that they "just don't get." This raises the questions of whether students are properly prepared for college and how IU brings those students back up to speed.\nIn areas such as math, IU offers preparatory classes that are not for credit but work with the purpose of getting students caught up to the basic college level. Last fall, nearly 1,440 IU students took one of the three preparatory courses in math -- M014, M018 or M025. That number was cut in half in the spring. This number is significantly lower than the statistic from the National Center for Education Statistics, which says that 35 percent of first- and second-year students take some sort of remedial course, of which nearly three-fourths are in the area of math.\n"In comparison to the Big Ten, that (statistic) is not really out of line," Dean of Faculties for the Math department Linda McKinley said. "But if you look at schools like branch campuses, they are almost 80 percent remedial."\nWhere a student is placed in the math program depends heavily on the results of his or her math skills assessment test taken during orientation. The test was designed 25 years ago by the math department to cover the full range of courses from M025 through M211, McKinley said. While IU chooses the placement test method, other schools will often simply look at scores on the math portions of either the ACT or SAT.\nWhile IU offers several classes for students to take in order to get caught up, too often students are scared away by the fact that they receive no credit and end up getting in over their heads.\n"There is quite a bit offered (at IU) if students can accept that the road to success leads to taking preparatory classes early," University Division adviser Margaret Baechtold said. "Too often students don't take the right class and fall behind. If they can be realistic, it can get them on a path to success."\nThe fact that every individual works at different levels in high school makes it difficult to tell whether or not high schools are to blame for students falling behind, but certain trends seem to be more noticeable.\n"I think a lot of high schools present the material as is," said Jennifer Hamblit of the Academic Support Center. "When they get (to IU), trying to apply the idea outside of what they learned it in is where the problem is caused. They understand the concept, but the trouble is going beyond it."\nOutside of preparatory classes, IU offers an extensive amount of student support to those who need help in a given area. For classes such as M025, the Academic Support Centers on campus try to focus on a lot of group work, Hamblit said. Certain nights the centers will issue problem solving worksheets where students can stay for a full hour and work through different problem-solving concepts.\n"I think high schools just need to push students to take as much math as they can and make them write, not just in English but all classes," Baechtold said. "Coming with a more complete background makes it easier."\n-- Contact staff writer Brian Janosch at bjanosch@indiana.edu.