Letter to the Editor: Michigan Math has your best interests at heart

I am writing in response to the opinion piece that appeared on March 6: “It’s time to stop dreading ‘Michigan Math.’ ” In the piece, the author describes what she perceives to be the shortcomings of MATH 115, including the grade distribution, the active learning format and the fact that many sections of the class are taught by Graduate Student Instructors. 

I agree with the author’s observation that more than 75% of students earn grades of A and B in MATH 115, but I am less sure that this is an indictment of our grading or of student learning in the course. The grade distribution in MATH 115 is similar to that of some comparable introductory STEM courses offered here. Moreover, at many institutions, far fewer students earn As and Bs in calculus classes, and the proportion of students earning Ds, Es and Ws is far higher. I acknowledge, though, that this could be part of a larger conversation about the meaning of grades and how they are given. 

The author noted further that many (about half) of the sections of MATH 115 are taught by GSIs. This is true, and many of them are fantastic teachers. Their average teaching evaluation scores are consistent with those of lecturers and regular faculty teaching other STEM courses; the best are among the best in our department. Not only that, but we simply couldn’t staff these courses exclusively with faculty: Because of their small size, we run about 230 sections per year of MATH 105/115/116. We have about 60 tenure-line faculty. The GSIs may be less experienced, but we do provide significant training for them (and for all new instructors teaching these courses), with the explicit goal of allowing them to be as effective as possible in the classroom. Our commitment to and model for training our developing teachers is, in fact, nationally recognized. 

We teach our introductory courses with a heavy emphasis on collaborative learning and problem solving because there is an extensive body of research that shows that this teaching style improves student learning and success. This emphasis on active learning is considered a best practice in post-secondary mathematics education. This doesn’t mean that students are teaching themselves; we expect that about half of the class time will be devoted to “mini-lectures” on the course material. However, we do expect students to have prepared before class, so that in lecture they are able to focus on harder material and can engage with the material in a deeper and richer way. The author cites an article that notes that this “flipped classroom” approach is more work (for the instructor), but which otherwise suggests that the approach we take is consistent with instruction that improves student learning. The way we teach our courses is also part of the national recognition Michigan Math has received for successful Calculus instruction. 

Where does this leave us? I think we are doing a lot of things right, even as I acknowledge that there is a lot that we continue to improve. There is tremendous evidence that small, active learning classrooms such as ours are exactly the way to best promote student learning. This evidence, and the fact that we expect students to develop a deep, conceptual understanding of the material we teach, is a fundamental characteristic of calculus instruction at the University of Michigan. I believe the fact that our expectations are high and that the course appears correspondingly more difficult than many of those offered at other institutions is a positive statement about the academic level of the course, the Math Department and the University. I hope that the students in our courses and at the University believe so too. 

Kristen Moore is an Associate Professor of Mathematics, she can be reached at ksmoore@umich.edu.