Assessment

The University is required by various external agencies to document student accomplishments, department activities, and other matters related to accreditation, teacher licensing, etc.  Your performance and your feedback are important pieces of this process.  Here are our program objectives, followed by some ways in which you will be involved in the assessment process.

·        Program objectives:

Students graduating with the Bachelor's degree in mathematics will be expected to have attained proficiency in the discipline as assessed by their mastery of the following program objectives:

·        Portfolio

We will be maintaining a collection of sample homework, sample group projects, copies of various history of math papers, as well as all final exams from all math classes. You are welcome to come to the chairman’s office to see your folder.  In fact we encourage you to do so before you graduate, so that you can compare your work as a freshman with what you’re doing now and see how much you’ve progressed.

·        Senior exam

Each person is required to take the Praxis – II mathematics content exam (0061).  If you are planning to teach, this is the test required for teacher certification, so it does double duty.  If you’re not planning to teach, don’t worry, since this test focuses on math content, not instructional ideas.  The test is a 2-hour multiple-choice exam produced by Educational Testing Service. 

Please review for the test so that you can do your best.  The Education office has a booklet dealing with all the Praxis math exams.  You should work the practice problems it contains for test 0061.  You can also purchase a test prep book called Math Test Prep Kit from ETS.  Notice that it will provide practice for 10061, as well as 3 other tests, so you can skip those practice sections.

Later in this document, we’ve included some key ideas about the use of a graphing calculator.  You should work through that material in order to be familiar with what Praxis expects from you as background knowledge.

At this time, you do not have to “pass” the exam to graduate, although we may end up requiring that someday.  But, please do your best.  It will be a big help to HU if our graduates-to-be do well on a nationally-normed exam!  (Prospective teachers have to pass the exam to be licensed in Indiana.)

You should review in the fall of your senior year and take the exam in December. 

You can sign up for the test on forms available at the Education office.  On the registration forms for 2008-2009, be sure to use 599 (Other) as your major field, and leave the certification area blank.  The test is $80 and the registration fee is $50.  More information is available at www.ets.org/praxis/prxaboutII.html

·        Feedback

o       Senior exit interview

Each senior is interviewed in late spring to enable us to learn your level of satisfaction with your education and to learn of suggestions you might have for improving the program.

o       Alumni surveys

You will receive a questionnaire from the Mathematics Department sometime within the first 5 years after you graduate.  Completing it helps us learn how well your education is serving you, what career you are in, what ideas for improvements you have, etc.  The questionnaire is anonymous, unless you choose to include your name.  It is likely that you will get further surveys from our department as the years go by.  We would greatly appreciate your helping us by filling them out and returning them.