After a busy and fun weekend, we settled down and watched a couple of sessions from ALT 2021. The first one Amada and I watched was on math! Entitled “Numeracy skills training for all with Elevate My Maths. Preparing students for Success in Higher Education and Beyond” and presented by James Howell and Ovidiu Bagdasar, this session presented findings from a project at the University of Derby. Howell started by explaining the need for a level of numeracy desired for “full participation in a technological society.” Some of the reasons given for the numeracy gap given were “societal attitudes, the idea that some people can do math while others can’t, and the over-reliance on calculators.” Citing data from Canada, Howell mentioned that 55% of Canadian adults are below the desired level of numeracy! In response to this need, Canada developed a collaboration with all 24 community college in Ontario and Vretta was selected as the company to work with. Vretta designed a product to diagnose and identify gaps and then provide prior knowledge. Howell then showed numeracy trends in the UK with 49% of British adults below the desired level of numeracy. Bagdasar described the impact of low numeracy scores on the workforce. Bagdasar teaches computational math and shared student feedback since 2013. In 2017-2018, Bagdasar ran a pilot of the Elevate My Math software system at the University of Darby that was expanded in 2018-2019 with a partnership with Vretta and full implementation in 2019. The implementation includes Blackboard integration and digital badges to improve employability. Results from the pilot were promising with the first three hundred students. After that, Bagdasar helped design twelve courses supported by Elevate My Maths. The feedback from students and staff allowed Vretta to update their summative assessments and create a dashboard. Bagdasar also showed data on student engagement and module grades. The percentage of students passing was higher with use of Elevate My Maths. They used Open Badge Factory to create badges. Bagdasar showed a slide with the new collaborations and partners that have been established. The software is intriguing, and I am interested in how they determine mastery to award badges. I also want to learn more about the Open Badge Factory!
