Central Arizona College Mathematics Department Mission:
- 1) Developmental Education: The Mathematics Department at CAC provides developmental courses in mathematics to help students overcome barriers to achieving academic, career, or personal goals.
- 2) Occupational/Technical Education: The Mathematics Department at CAC provides courses for certificate programs. These courses offer competency based training to prepare students for employment in business and industry.
- 3) Transfer Education: The mathematics Department at CAC provides freshman and sophomore level mathematics courses which meet degree requirements for students transferring to colleges or universities. CAC also provides calculus/differential equations sequence for students wishing to transfer in a degree program requiring more emphasis on mathematics.
Additional Goals at Aravaipa Campus:
To help students to become effective users of math in their roles as students,
workers, citizens, and consumers. To provide an quality program in mathematics
that upholds national standards for mathematics developed by the following national
mathematics associations: American Mathematics Association of Two Year Colleges
(AMATYC), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Mathematics Association
of America (MAA) and American Mathematical Association (AMA). Basic Principles
The basic principles for AMATYC standards are as follows:
- All students should grow in their knowledge of mathematics while attending
college.
- The mathematics that students study should be meaningful and relevant.
- Mathematics must be taught as a laboratory discipline.
- The use of technology is an essential part of an up-to-date curriculum.
- Students will acquire mathematics through a carefully balanced educational
program that emphasizes the content and instructional strategies recommended
in the standards along with the viable components of traditional instruction.
- Introductory college mathematics should significantly increase students
options in educational and career choices.
- Increased participation by all students in mathematics and in careers
using mathematics is a critical goal in our heterogeneous society.
Goals are being met gradually, as math standards are increasingly accepted
by students, faculty, and administration. Students who enter with prerequisite
skills, attend class regularly, participate in class activities, and complete
homework assignments will be expected to do better than those who do not.
As more students enter college math classes from high schools and colleges
that offer standards-based math experiences, additional improvement is expected.
Although classes taught off-campus by part time instructors are taught in
traditional style, the modern math classes at Aravaipa campus taught by Professor
Shay Cardell are unique for this college, since they represent an alignment
of teaching methods with national math standards. Her classes incorporating
graphing calculators and computers, collaborative learning, hands-on laboratory
activities, capstone projects, multimedia interactive presentations with electronic
response pads, math modeling of real-world data, and other innovative methods.
Modern textbooks and computer software that encourage hands-on activities
and active learning are used. Although traditional skills are still taught,
some seldom used methods, such as reduction of radical expressions, are deemphasized
while number sense, estimation, and deep understanding of mathematical concepts
is emphasized.
The AMATYC standards provide a new vision for introductory college mathematics-a
vision whereby students develop intellectually by learning central mathematical
concepts in settings that employ a rich variety of instructional strategies.
As math standards become more widely accepted, and computers and calculators
continue to permeate the workplace, innovative, standards-based programs
are expected tol become more competitive in the global market than traditional
math programs.