“When Am I Ever Going to Use This?”: Rethinking Assessments to Help Students Find Meaning in Math

Instructors are often frustrated with this question from students: “When am I ever going to use this?”

This question is asked across disciplines, but, as a mathematician, I have become accustomed to hearing this complaint disguised as a question. My first response was usually to defend my subject by explaining the beauty of mathematics. I explained to students why I love math: the patterns, the puzzles, the elegant solutions, the pursuit of higher truth. Although this might be satisfactory to some, ultimately it did not answer the student’s original question, “When am I ever going to use this?” 

Although an important question, I don’t think “When am I ever going to use this?” is the question that is really being asked. More generally, the student’s question really is “Why should I care?” and I was answering a different question, “Why do YOU care?” While both questions are important, my previous answers only addressed the unasked question, leaving the first unanswered.

It is really hard to answer the question “Why should I care?” because each student is unique, coming from different backgrounds and desiring different goals. Ultimately, only the student will be able to answer the question. However, as the instructor, it is important for me to answer the question: how can I create an environment in my class where students have the opportunity to answer the question for themselves?

To answer this question, I started thinking about my assessments. Most of the assessments given in mathematics service courses do not help students answer their underlying question. Assessments are usually designed to evaluate students on specific skills that I, as the instructor, have deemed to be important. They usually have a prompt, a process, and solutions that have been preselected by the instructor. The students have little choice in the matter, and unfortunately, the students might not see how these questions are achieving the learning goals for the course. The focus might be on “how to pass the test.” 

Based on a project from the Kaneb Center Course Design Academy, one of our courses is going to try to change some of our assessments. We are going to be learning skills in class and practicing with them, but our large assessments are going to be open-ended and project-based. Part of the project is students deciding what questions they need to answer to solve it.

As an example, our first project (which is set in a calculus for business course) can be summarized as “An investor comes to you and asks for a report about stock ###. He wants you to analyze the performance of the stock and give him advice as a potential investor.” We’ll have a rubric and certain expectations, but the project is designed to be more real-world and open-ended. The students will conclude with a two-minute recorded “pitch” to the investor.

This project was inspired by talking to other faculty members outside of the mathematics department. I had never really thought of assessing another way since it was so uncommon in mathematics. Ultimately, I don’t know if it will help answer the question of “Why should I care?” but my hope is these more open-ended, student-driven projects create an environment in my class where the student has that opportunity.

Brian Mulholland is an assistant professor of the practice in the Department of Mathematics and a 2023–24 faculty fellow of Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence.

For more assessment resources, visit learning.nd.edu/resources-page/assessment.