The following are comments from former Mat 101E students:

"The group presentations have helped me because two heads are better than one. Group presentations allow you to work together to help each other understand the material. I have learned more than ever about math and am beginning to understand some of it."

"The average rate of change project was very helpful and I enjoyed it. The presentations were helpful because they were like hands-on projects. I can use the applications from the text in real-life situations."

"The explorations are very helpful and the homework helps. I have actually learned in this class, whereas other algebra classes - I really did not."

"The group assignments have been the most helpful, not saying that it is a group effort at all times, but the idea of taking what we have learned and implementing it is always a plus."

"The in-class activities were quite helpful in that I felt I learned more, retained more interest, and visualized the information better than just doing problems from the book. I am glad someone finally made a class where I could relate math to the real world."

"I found the student support services and math learning center most helpful. Even if someone didn't make full use of it, it was always an option. Personally, when made use of, the lab was key in helping me make better grades."

"I found learning to use the graphing calculator most helpful. Presentations are also a very good way to get students involved and to get a working understanding of the material. I found some of our explorations projects interesting because they used all of what we learned in the chapter. If you were able to explain what you did, this experience made it easier to do well on the quizzes and tests."

"At first, I didn't like this class because I liked just regular algebra without all the application, but now I really like it and I found that the applications helped me see where I would use algebra in everyday life. The course is fine. I started out poorly, however, and my grade in here is not what it should be. My suggestion for other students is not to think college algebra is a "sop" course - take it seriously."

"The activities that are the most helpful to me were the group projects and the in-class explorations. I was able to discuss with other students things I did not understand about a problem. I enjoyed interacting with my classmates."

"This class helped me to understand concepts that I didn't grasp in the normal Mat 101 class. I very much enjoyed the explorations and the problems based in real world terms. It seemed like, that instead of just solving problems we were problem solving. This made the frustration that I normally experience in the face of algebra seem to disappear."

"I appreciated the extra help during office hours, and the additional software helped me to visualize the math problems. I highly recommend this class to anyone with problems visualizing math/algebra."

"The group activities we did in class were all very helpful to me. In spite of the large amount of homework required, I felt that helped me a great deal as well - algebra aerobics included."

"I enjoyed doing the oral presentations during class. Explaining my assignment to others helped the material sink in a little better. I did not like outside reading, but I do believe it was somewhat helpful. It allowed us to get a head start on the assignment for the next day."