Promoting Higher Student Mathematics Achievement in Online Settings: Introducing PHiSMAOS

Introduction

In March of 2020, the authors’ students, all undergraduate elementary mathematics pre-service teachers (PSTs), left for Spring Break and never returned as COVID-19 spread across the globe. While the authors’ classes did resume, the setting, and modalities in which those classes took place were exceptionally different from the beginning of the semester. In addition, while the authors had experience teaching online courses before, those courses were not targeted for PSTs who had planned to take a face-to-face course. Also, the authors’ experiences in teaching online primarily lay in graduate mathematics content courses with students expecting an online environment and who had already successfully navigated the collegiate environment at least once. As the authors rapidly joined the rest of the world in creating online meaningful, lasting mathematical learning experiences overnight, they found themselves facing additional unique problems on top of the traditional problems already facing their PSTs.

Traditionally, the authors’ university, Sam Houston State University, is an institution with approximately 45% first generation college attendees, about 60% labeled at risk, 24.7% Hispanic undergraduate population, and over 75% of the students working while pursuing their degree (https://www.shsu.edu/about/facts.html). This demographic is much more likely characterized as underprepared for college level work, especially in mathematics and English (Atherton, 2014; Boden, 2011; Melzer & Grant, 2016; Terenzini et al., 1996) and requiring additional support for success (Eveland, 2020; Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020; Ward et al., 2012). Furthermore, Perin and Holschuh (2019) found in their review of the literature that underprepared postsecondary students benefitted from approaches that included teaching of discrete skills, providing strategic instruction, incorporating new and multiple literacies, employing disciplinary and contextualized approaches, using digital technology, and integrating reading and writing instruction. However, Perin and Holschuh (2019) further noted that the field has yet to develop a clear theoretical framework pointing to how teaching underprepared students might improve. In addition, prior to COVID-19, many of the authors’ PSTs at this institution have struggled with mathematics anxiety based on pre/post data every semester/term since Fall 2017 on PSTs’ self-reported levels of mathematics anxiety. This data showed an average of 53.5% (N=432 PSTs) reported moderate to extreme levels of mathematics anxiety on the first day of class. Furthermore, recent research has shown an inter-connectedness between math anxiety and a person’s mindset towards mathematics (Tassell et al., 2020).