CSUMB wins HP award Math program selected as one of 10 exemplary projects worldwide

Cal State Monterey Bay has earned an EdTech Innovators Award from Hewlett Packard and the New Media Consortium. The award recognizes pioneers in education who are using technology in groundbreaking ways.

According to HP, CSUMB’s project, “Leapfrogging Mathematics in the Early Start Program,” stood out because it’s a proven example of an educational project that uses technology in novel ways inside and outside the classroom. The EdTech Innovators Award includes a technology grant of $40,000 and membership in a social network designed for educators. Only 10 winners were selected – 4 percent of applications – representing educational institutions in the U.S., India, Costa Rica, South Africa, Canada and Brazil. The new grant allows high school math teachers and students to attend four weeks of math “boot camp” during the summer. The high school teachers will partner with CSUMB faculty members on new educational strategies using tablet PCs – personal computers equipped with touch screens – that address the needs of remedial math students. The project’s goals are to reduce the percentage of college freshmen who need remedial math from 60 percent to under 40 percent; to help high school teachers invigorate their courses and collaborate with college professors on curriculum; and to document the work so that it can be used on campuses across the country. Leapfrogging Math is a new program, but it builds on CSUMB’s successes in courses using tablet PC technology. Working with HP, the university has created a remedial math program that serves about 500 of its own freshmen each year. More than 92 percent of students are passing the two-semester course, compared to the national rate of just under 50 percent. In recognition of the university’s innovative work to integrate mobile technologies across the curriculum, HP has awarded four technology grants to CSUMB’s Wireless Education and Technology Center since 2003.