BY KATHLEEN R. CABRAL – Leeward Community College has been selected as one of only 38 two-year institutions nationwide to participate in the National Center for Academic Transformation’s Changing the Equation program. The new program, supported by a $2.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focuses on redesigning remedial/developmental math courses.
Eric Matsuoka, Leeward mathematics professor, and Jenny Watada, Leeward mathematics instructor, were instrumental in writing the grant. Matsuoka and Watada were assisted by institutional analyst, Guy Nishimoto, and math faculty, Catherine Walker and Celeste Tanabe. Matsuoka was a 2010 recipient of the Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching.
Institutions participating in the program will improve student learning outcomes while reducing costs for both students and institutions using the National Center for Academic Transformation’s (NCAT) proven redesign methodology.
Chancellor Manny Cabral expressed his excitement about the project, “I’m very pleased with the innovative direction taken by Leeward CC’s mathematics department in addressing the local and national issue of remedial/developmental math. We want every student to achieve math course content mastery, and this grant will help us achieve that goal.”
Each participant in Changing the Equation will redesign its entire developmental math sequence-all sections of all developmental courses offered-using NCAT’s Emporium Model and commercially available instructional software. Each redesign will modularize the curriculum, allowing students to progress through the developmental course sequence at a faster pace if possible or at a slower pace if necessary, spending the amount of time needed to master the course content. Collectively, these 38 redesigns will impact more than 100,000 students annually.
Details on the program and the list of other selected institutions online at https://www.thencat.org/Mathematics/CTE/CTE.htm