Mathematics Faculty Presents Case for Capping Calculus Courses

by Jessica Silver-Sharp

In April, AFT proposed reduced class maximums for Calculus I & II classes (detailed in Appendix F in our contract). In support, Cañada College mathematics faculty member Helena Almassy joined our union’s April 18, 2025, bargaining session with the District. In the role of “faculty expert” on behalf of Cañada College Math Department/STEM Division and with feedback from Skyline and CSM Math departments, Helana presented a strong case for reducing calculus course enrollment from 40 to 26 students.

As she spoke, the District’s chief negotiator Ellen Wu tried to limit Helena’s presentation, asserting that her comments were taking too much time. At one point Helena was muted without warning. Monica Malamud reminded those in attendance that it was her prerogative as AFT’s Chief Negotiator to decide how best to allocate our union’s speaking time for our proposals. Monica explained the reasons behind and the precedent for AFT to bring in experts like Helena to educate the District’s team: that teaching and disciplines may have changed significantly since they received their higher education training, thus updates from experts were essential to understanding our union’s proposals.

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Currently, Cañada College calculus classes are capped at 40 students

To set the stage for her arguments, Helena continued, sharing details of her teaching load and current enrollment numbers in three calculus classes: Business Calculus (Math 241) – 33 students; Calculus I (Math 251) – 26 students, and Calculus II (Math 252) – 35 students. She explained to the District’s negotiators,

“My teaching style is student-centered. 80% of the time and activities I present are done in groups. Many of my colleagues across the district [also] incorporate some form of group work. During class my goal is to visit all groups to get a sense of comprehension of the material. However, [with larger classes] it has felt increasingly overwhelming to try to visit all the groups; ultimately I have to manage visiting only some of the groups each day.”

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Gaps in knowledge: SMCCCD students generally not prepared for calculus

Helena laid out the additional challenge that most current students are not quite ready for calculus and present a range of gaps of preparation. “Even students who have recently completed precalculus have a lot of gaps…that act as a barrier to their success in Calculus 1. So much material is covered in precalculus (Math 225) that not all the gaps…are filled by the time students get to Calculus 1.”

To make matters worse, students who took math courses in high school during the pandemic need even more help with algebra, required for success in calculus.

She referenced her Cañada mathematics colleague Sumathi Shankar’s explanation that students are also coming to calculus with fewer math and study skills than before AB705 went into effect and resulted in students needing to be placed in transfer level math classes.

AB1705, which emphasizes direct placement of STEM students into calculus classes for which they might not be ready (rather than pre-calculus or trigonometry), has also exacerbated the problems of readiness and increased teaching workloads.

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Strategies to adapt cannot alone solve the problems

To address larger class sizes, Helena explained how she has enlisted embedded tutors in her classrooms. “Currently, I have two embedded tutors per class. However, not all faculty have the luxury of hiring embeds. And hiring tutors won’t solve the issue of large class size. Tutors also struggle with the large class sizes.” From one embedded student tutor:

“When the class is very large… greater than 30 students, it’s hard to go around to each group and make sure that they’re fully understanding the material. It’s also hard to focus when there’s so many students talking around you, which I think makes it harder to tutor.”
– S., student and embedded tutor at Cañada College

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Further arguments for smaller classes to reduce workload

Helena also explained how using evidence-based, non-traditional teaching strategies such as interactive work, collaboration (groups), and engaging (think-pair-share) strategies that contribute to student success, also consume increased time and effort. Instructors can enact those strategies much more efficiently in smaller classes. She quoted a tutor:

“Students benefit from smaller class sizes because they get more individualized help from the professor/tutor, the group work dynamic is better because it’s easier to know your classmates in a small class, and I think students are able to focus more on the learning because there are less distractions.”
– – S., student and embedded tutor at Cañada College

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Calculus courses are foundational to our students’ education

Helena also explained to the District that “Calculus courses like Business Calculus (Math 241), Calculus 1 (Math 251), Calculus 2 (Math 252) are prerequisites for many courses across STEM and non-STEM majors alike. These courses are foundational to students as they begin their path towards finishing their AA degree or transferring. These are gate-keeping classes and increasing the success rate of students is important. Decreasing the class size is one of the ways to do this.” All three campuses (CSM, Skyline and Cañada math departments) agree on calling for smaller class sizes.