Students are allowed to use graphing calculators to support their thinking, and they are seldom put under extreme time pressure to complete their tasks. He called on colleges to recognize that students completing NCTM Standards-based curricula know considerably more mathematics than what is measured by current placement tests, and their deeper conceptual understandings of functions and modeling may compensate for some skill shortcomings. He suggested that during this transition period, placement test results might be considered advisory. Since they offer only one course which precedes calculus, and since a majority of their students are heading for calculus, it is easier for them to do placement than it is for a college that offers a variety of starting courses. A combination of SAT score, overall high school GPA, and a placement test score is used to determine whether or not a student appears to need additional work before taking calculus.
Students then meet with an academic advisor and decide which course to elect.
Because of the questions brought up at previous Building Bridges sessions and the steady decline in algebra placement test scores over the last ten years, UM-Ann Arbor is currently reexamining its entire procedure to see whether it still predicts calculus grades accurately. We are only beginning to see students who have completed any reform high school curriculum, and we certainly have not had a chance to assess their strengths, although we believe these strengths will become apparent soon. It seems likely that the time they have spent developing problem-solving skills will serve them well in beginning calculus. However, a persistent problem remains. Across the country, many college instructors, particularly those who teach calculus, find that incoming students from all backgrounds are being sabotaged by their inability to reliably perform what we think of as easy arithmetic and algebra.