Lynn Marecek and MaryAnne Anthony-Smith are Professors Emeriti of Mathematics at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California, where they have each been honored with the college’s Distinguished Faculty Award. They worked together on many projects focused on improving student learning in the developmental mathematics courses.
Lynn and MaryAnne each have three adult children. Years ago, while volunteering in their children’s classrooms, both Lynn and MaryAnne became fascinated at the methods they saw being used to develop mathematical concepts through the use of manipulatives. They decided to adapt these methods to the adult college learner, and obtained a number of grants to develop curriculum and purchase materials for the Santa Ana College developmental mathematics classes. These projects resulted in the Manipulative Mathematics activities.
Recognizing a need to improve literacy as well as bolster math foundations, they wrote curriculum to link math-themed children’s books to the curriculum of the college Prealgebra course. Using any available funding they found, they purchased books for the college library. As an added benefit, the library’s books are used by children who come to the library with their college student parents! You can find these activities on the Links to Literacy page.
Many college students have poorly developed study skills. Lynn and MaryAnne believe teachers of developmental mathematics should proactively assist their students in improving their study skills. To this end, they created study skills activities, and gathered them into a workbook which they call Strategies for Success.
These projects have been integrated and unified into a series of Algebra textbooks. Prealgebra, Elementary Algebra, and Intermediate Algebra have been published by OpenStax.org and are all available for free.