Faculty in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Mathematics were moving away from requiring students to buy textbooks long before the coronavirus forced classes online in 2020.
Brand-new, hardcover textbooks for Math 106 — Calculus 1 — go for as much as $200 apiece, while used textbooks can run $100, a price point that has risen by 90% over the past decade, limiting access for some students.
The commercial textbooks also didn’t align with the active learning model the math department adopted in 2014, which transforms instructors from traditional lecturers into facilitators of class discussion.
“We didn’t think the students were getting a lot out of the textbooks,†said Nathan Wakefield, director of UNL’s first-year mathematics programs, “so we produced three of our own that were entirely open-source.â€
The open-source materials produced by UNL’s math department, which include course packets and worksheets developed by faculty and cost $15-$30 depending on the class, went live shortly before COVID-19 forced UNL to cancel in-person classes for the remainder of the 2020 spring semester.
The move to remote, asynchronous learning effectively scrapped the math department’s prepared curriculum for the semester.
Faculty quickly recorded video lectures to accompany the open-source materials and directed class discussion to online message boards, a stopgap of sorts to get through the semester.
“Everything had to happen so fast,†Wakefield said. “We had students spread across the state and beyond, so it was a pretty rough start.â€
It also forced faculty to think critically about further expanding access to students and improving learning outcomes for students who engaged the math department in a new way, said Allan Donsig, vice chair of the department.
“We were in this situation in March of 2020 where suddenly everything was asynchronous,†Donsig said. “It might not have been great, but it set us up in the summer to try and say, ‘Let’s make this work better; let’s improve upon it.’â€
Some of the work done by the math department throughout the summer of 2020 to prepare for in-person classes, remote classes or some combination of the two will continue this academic year as well, nearly 18 months after the pandemic reached Nebraska.
At the same time, the university was upgrading technology in 400 classrooms across the system to allow for simultaneous in-person and remote instruction, and acquiring 1,000 mobile Wi-Fi units to be made available to students, a spokeswoman said.
The impact will be felt far and wide: The math department alone will reach roughly two-thirds of UNL’s incoming students this year — last year’s freshman class topped 4,600 — collectively earning more credit hours than the next several course subjects combined.
According to Donsig, UNL’s math faculty first made the decision to stop teaching courses asynchronously in the summer of 2020 in lieu of requiring students to be online during a normally scheduled class time.
They leaned on UNL’s online master’s program and in-service math teachers across the state for tips on structuring an all-online course, as well as tricks for keeping students engaged through Zoom.
“People teach people,†Donsig said. “Videos themselves are not enough — there has to be a person the student has a connection to, and that is what we need to support and sustain our online work.â€
Math faculty also improved the department’s online homework system, cutting down costs for students and providing an ease-of-use for both students and faculty.
And they started offering tutoring sessions and meetings with faculty through Zoom, services that will continue as they help expand access to those living off campus, or those who live on campus who may not be able to make in-person events.
“It’s a bit of ‘Field of Dreams,’†Donsig said. “You don’t know if you build something if there is going to be any usage of it, but we know students know how to use Zoom, so it certainly serves as a resource.â€
Wakefield — who coordinates freshman-level courses such as intermediate algebra, college algebra, trigonometry, business calculus and contemporary math — said the videos created as lecture materials will still be available to students as well.
“We still have all of those resources, so we want to leverage them and give students a resource if they get behind or need another explanation on a topic that might click with them in a different way,†he said.
Jaci Lindburg, NU’s associate vice president of digital education and IT strategy, said efforts like those in UNL’s math department during the pandemic have “really leveled the playing field†for all students moving forward when it comes to access.
“Some of these efforts were in play before,†she said, “but we also knew we had the opportunity to create possibilities for students that would serve them after the pandemic as well.â€
Donsig said the pandemic spurred the department to adopt some technology and strategies more quickly than it would have otherwise, and that many of the improvements will continue after the threat of the coronavirus subsides.
“We definitely have looked for the things that have been useful improvements in order to keep them going and build upon them in a way that improves students’ success,†he said. “We have done a lot in the last decade to improve student success in introductory courses, and we want to make sure that continues.â€