Math Pathways Q&A

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Question 1. ​Your pathways are different from Dana Center's co-requisite model. Why?
Answer: ​

• The co-requisite model works well for those who are willing to reduce developmental math but are not ready to condense it into one semester. In a sense the co-requisite model is a compromise between shortening the pathway and covering a workable amount of developmental math.​
• Minneapolis College doesn't need the co-requisite model because we have successfully consolidated all the developmental math into one semester. This is a rare feat but we are hardly the first to accomplish it: Metro State University has a long-running single-semester developmental math model with no co-requisites.

Question 2. Your Statistics pathway requires one semester of developmental math. Would you make it even shorter by switching to Dana Center's co-requisite model?
Answer:

• The math department considered this but decided against it. I will not speak on their behalf, except that the decision was not capricious.
• As an administrator, I appreciate the simplicity of having a single shared developmental course for College Algebra and Statistics.  After all, the more new courses the harder to staff them, and the more risk of having under-enrolled or cancelled classes.
• (New in Spring 2022). We have completed a revised statistics curriculum that requires no prerequisites and no co-requisites.  The zero-prerequisite Statistics course will be piloted in Spring 2023.