Inverting the remedial mathematics classroom with alternative assessment

The author present a case-study of a classroom technique that allows assessment and some remediation of several shortcomings of college student skills in mathematics, particularly problem solving. Students are required to write their own notes for class and hand them in at the end for credit. Instead of a traditional lecture format, the first part of class is used to do examples of problems, creating an opportunity to model problem solving strategies for the class. Students then are separated into groups to work on individualized homework sets delivered via WeBWorK and group projects. Although problem sets are individualized, the problem types are the same from student to student, and the groups work on problems from all students in the group. Several issues of implementation are identified. Also discussed are alternative implementations of parts of the strategy, and possible extensions of the strategy to other courses that aren't based on problem-solving.