Calculus...and so much more
By Betsey Norgard
A dozen or so first-year students in groups of threes and fours are talking, scribbling, erasing, and rewriting equations on the board. The professor watches and offers hints as needed. Two student leaders wander around, pausing to respond to questions or give a word of praise. Sometimes students work at tables, but rarely do they listen to a lecture.
Welcome to Calculus Workshop, a twice-weekly elective workshop for students enrolled in Calculus I and II.
Professor Rebekah Dupont is the Augsburg coordinator of the North Star STEM Alliance, a program that seeks to increase the number of minority students who complete degrees in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. She developed Calculus Workshop as a strategy to help these students succeed in college-level mathematics courses.
The workshop particularly targets the
needs of underrepresented minorities, first-generation
college students, and women in
majors that require calculus, but any student
taking Calculus I or II who is interested
in working collaboratively and setting
high performance standards is welcomed.
The first workshop began as a pilot in fall
and spring last year, starting with 12 students.
At the end of spring semester, the results
were impressive. The mostly-minority
students in the workshop achieved a 0.6
higher grade point average (GPA) than the
Calculus I and II students not in the workshop,
despite having entered college with an
overall lower average ACT score and GPA.
So, now in its second year, Calculus
Workshop is an official department offering.
Just why is it so successful? To begin with,
Dupont grounds it in the research and best
practices developed for STEM students participating
in workshops linked to academic
courses. She designed the workshop for
students to preview the material to be presented
in their calculus class, reinforce it,
and synthesize it by working together to
solve problems.
The intent of the workshop is not remedial,
but to promote high levels of academic
excellence, which also promotes
retention. Its major objective is to build
community and collaboration among students,
who, in this case, are mostly in their
first year.
Not your classroom calculus
Jazmine Darden took the pilot Calculus
Workshop last year and credits it in large
part for the grade she received in Calculus
I. One factor for her was that the workshop
is hands-on, not class lectures.
“Workshop teaches in a different manner … There are many days that we, the students, are up at the chalkboard solving problems,” says Darden. “Or other times we are given worksheets and work in small groups … Workshop is a very team-oriented and group-oriented environment.”
Darden also finds the workshop a comfortable environment. “Workshop is very diverse,” she continues. “It’s nice to walk into Workshop and see other students just like me. It gives us all an extra push to strive for success.”
Mathematics + opportunities
In addition to building community, the workshop
has emerged as an effective means for
Dupont to connect first-year students with
leadership, academic, and research opportunities.
In some cases, these are opportunities
such as study abroad and Fulbright
awards that wouldn’t be familiar to students
whose parents have not attended college.
“We have so many programs to support
and help students, but they have to get connected
to them,” Dupont says. “They have to
hear about these opportunities and then
start thinking about them.” Several of last
year’s students have become McNair Scholars,
which provides them summer research
and ongoing support to apply to graduate
school. Some have joined the North Star
STEM program and work closely with
Dupont.
It was in this workshop where sophomore
Fred Vedasto heard about the Minneapolis
schools’ summer Guys In Science and Engineering
(GISE) program, which brings middle-
school boys to Augsburg for hands-on
science exploration, with Augsburg students
hired as mentors.
“It was all about the kids for me,” Vedasto says. He loved feeling like a “big
brother” while helping teach them science— it meant letting them have some fun and
fool around, but also making sure they got
the work done.
Workshop big brothers and sisters
Two student mentors assist Dupont in the
workshop. These students also offer help beyond
calculus. One of last year’s mentors,
Gaby Hamerlinck, was a senior biology and
math major. She says that she and junior
Tom Lopez, another mentor, helped students
prepare for exams, learn how to approach
their professors, and answer questions about
college life.
“There were a few student-athletes in the
group who did not think that a math major
and collegiate sports could work in their
schedule,” Hamerlinck says. “But being a
multi-sport athlete as well, I was able to help
them with time management, which allowed
them to succeed on and off the field.”
This year’s student mentors are Darden
and Trevor Rodriguez Sotelo, both sophomores
and workshop students from last year.
They are closer in age to the workshop students
and believe this makes a difference in
connecting with their mentees around campus,
sometimes eating and studying together. “Workshop has allowed me to build
relationships with many first-year students in
and out of the classroom,” says Darden. “I
don’t like to be called a tutor to these students
because I have built a relationship
that is so much more.”
“As a student leader, it’s important to be
a positive role model in the classroom,” says
Rodriguez Sotelo. “… but my biggest challenge
has been how to be a positive role
model of life. … I hope that if I can teach
them a thing or two about schoolwork and
also about everyday life, they will have a
more enjoyable experience throughout their
college career.”
Research—jumping right in
Students in the workshop are
expected to set high goals for
themselves. While first-year
students do not usually begin
research in their first year,
Dupont seeks funding and encourages
them to connect with
faculty about research opportunities.
Sometimes it takes a little push from
Dupont—which is how Vedasto got into his
physics research project last spring. “She
was asking,” he says, “but it wasn’t a
question.”
With NASA funding, physics professor
David Murr, junior Chris Woehle, and
Vedasto developed a payload of instruments
to measure light that was launched in a
rocket 40 miles high as part of a nine-college
project. Vedasto determined the
rocket’s navigation using math calculations.
He plans to continue research with
Murr again this summer.
Vedasto says the research helped him
figure out his interests. “I always thought I
wanted to be an electrical engineer, and my
research confirmed this,” he says. “It was
fun, interesting, and helped me get a feel
for what I wanted to do.”
Last spring, Dupont also helped Hamerlinck
and first-year student Kayla Johnson
secure funding for research with mathematics
professor John Zobitz, who had taught
calculus to both of them. They studied the
spread of the flu through a contained population
of Augsburg day students.
With the project, Hamerlinck and Johnson had to face the challenges of learning how to present their research at poster sessions, which they did at three events in late spring. “It was a great experience, and I wish I had been able to do it sooner in my career at Augsburg,” Hamerlinck says. “But I’m so proud of Kayla for getting it done her freshman year!”
Working together with Hamerlinck was great for Johnson. “Gaby pushed me, helping me with study skills, with balancing my time, and mainly showing me that I could do it.” This combination of faculty, upper-level student, and first-year student research is a nontraditional model, but proving especially important to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in mathematics, Zobitz says. “Gaby gave Kayla some helpful advice about courses and navigating a four-year degree that I (as her adviser) could not.”
What does Zobitz see the students gain
from the research experience? “The first-year
students see a direct connection between
their coursework and research topics,” he
says. “For Kayla, I tried to give specific readings
commensurate with her skills, typically
tied to her calculus textbook.”
“The upper-level students have an opportunity for reinforcement of previously learned skills by having to communicate with younger students,” continues Zobitz. “More importantly, this is an opportunity for mentorship and collaboration. … It was important to foster a sense of community that this is a shared, collaborative endeavor, rather than each person pursuing their own individual research.”
Especially exciting for Dupont last summer
was to secure research spots for all six
of the North Star STEM workshop students
by the end of their first year.
An incredibly valuable experience
Students have high regard for Calculus Workshop,
even those who may have signed on reluctantly
because of the extra time involved.
One student, with a heavy work schedule in
addition to classes, found out how valuable
the workshop could be when his Calculus I
grade improved from a failing first test to a
score in the 90s on a subsequent one.
Dupont enjoys watching the growth of the students. “At the beginning, going to the board was so hard for them,” she says. “They’re so smart and have ideas in their head, but they fear they’re wrong. For them, it’s about gaining the confidence to be on their feet and get to the point where they want to know how to fix what they do wrong and take that understanding to the next level.”
Hamerlinck, who is now working toward a PhD in evolutionary biology on a scholarship at the University of Iowa, agrees: “The best part for me was watching the students grow more confident in themselves and their academic skills.”
For Kirubel Gezehegn, a current student in the workshop who graduated from British schools in Zimbabwe, the transition to American college life was difficult. “The workshop prepared me for learning about American education, seeing that processes here are different, and it helped my understanding.” He welcomes the challenges—“I don’t want to breeze through and think about what I could have done with the time.”
It’s clear, however, among all students, that a key to much of the workshop success has been the leadership of Dupont, whom Vedasto refers to as “the godmother of our class.”
Darden says, “I am so thankful for all the opportunities I have been given in the last couple of years due to North Star STEM, Rebekah Dupont, and my upper-class mentors.” She says that there’s nothing she would rather do than “give back and try my best to give these opportunities to other students.”
In an e-mail to Dupont, Johnson writes, “Without your help and my experience in Workshop, I would have missed out on so many opportunities.”
She continues, “I’m so glad I said ‘why not?’ and filled out that application for Workshop. … Isn’t it crazy how one choice can make such a huge impact on someone’s life?”
