Oregon College’s Welding Math Classes and Practical Applications Help Students Who Are Struggling

Instructors say that math courses tailored to specific professions prepare students for work

An Oregon community college is offering a solution to the math skills gap that many students enter college with: classes in practical applications of math.

“Math for Welders” is just one of a number of job-specific math courses offered at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, according to a recent study Hechinger Reportarticle vol.

In other classes, students studying automotive technology, culinary arts and criminal justice gain practical math skills.

Lisa Avery, president of Linn-Benton, said Hechinger Report The university began offering its first applied mathematics classes in 2013 after noticing how much of a barrier the subject was for many students.

Now, university lecturers say more students are taking maths, which allows them to find their place in the job market better.

Here are more excerpts from the report:

Mathematics professor Michael Lopez, wearing a hoodie and jeans, with a tape measure tucked into his belt, walks in front of 14 students in his “math for welders” class.

“I’m your OSHA inspector,” he says. “Three-sixteenths of an inch difference, that’s a violation. You’ll get a fine.”

He had just given them a project they could do on the job: determining the rung spacing on an exterior steel ladder that was attached to a wall. Thousands of dollars are at stake in such designs, and they are complicated: Some clients want the fewest rungs possible to save money; others want a specific distance between steps. To pass inspection, the rungs must be evenly spaced to within one-sixteenth of an inch, and the top rung must be flush with the top of the wall.

The success of specialty classes is not unique to Linn-Benton.

The report continues:

Some researchers believe that these small initiatives to teach mathematics in context have the potential to transform how mathematics is taught more broadly.

According to a 2011 article by Dolores Perin, a researcher at Columbia University Teachers College, one strategy for helping students who struggle with math is to provide them with a contextual curriculum, which appears to have “the strongest theoretical foundation and perhaps the strongest empirical support.”

Many higher education institutions are reporting that students are struggling with basic maths skills, particularly since the COVID-19 lockdown.

Some students can’t even add fractions or subtract negative numbers, Temple and George Mason University professors say Associated Press Press Agency last year.

To solve this problem, many are implementing tutoring, remedial courses, and summer programs.

A 2022 study by the World Bank, Harvard University and the Brookings Institution also found widespread learning loss among students around the world during COVID-19 lockdowns, some of which lasted more than a year, College Repair was reported at the time.

MORE: Math Professors: New Students Can’t Even Add Fractions, Subtract

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