Colleges and universities have been viewed traditionally as communities devoted to learning, and academic disciplines such as psychology have been characterized as communities of scholars. According to a variety of sources, the collegiality in these overlapping academic communities appears to be eroding. A recent Carnegie report commented on the fragmentation in higher education today:The administrative structure has grown more and more complex, the disciplines have become increasingly divided, and academic departments are frequently disconnected from one another. The curriculum is fragmented, and the educational experience of students frequently lacks coherence. Many are now asking: How can the work of the nation's colleges and universities become more intellectually coherent?

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with a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Benson teaches first year engineering, research methods, and graduate engineering education courses. Her research interests include student-centered active learning in undergraduate engineering, assessment of motivation, and how motivation affects student learning. She is also involved in projects that utilize Tablet PCs to enhance student learning. Her education includes a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Vermont, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering from Clemson University.

Although the secondary-tertiary transition has been investigated in mathematics education research with different focuses and theoretical approaches, it remains a major issue for students in the transition. With success in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) major at stake, we investigated a novel approach to support the transition from secondary precalculus or calculus to tertiary calculus. Using the Four Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) model and empirical data from the United States (US) nationally representative FICSMath project, we mapped instructional experiences of students in the transition to theoretical components of the 4C/ID model. From exploratory factor analysis (n=6,140), we found six factors that mapped to the 4C/ID model components and created the new Secondary Precalculus Calculus (SPC) 4C/ID model. In this model, the Learning Task Component represents tasks to engage learners in meaningful problem solving; the Support Component grounds instruction in reasoning and understanding; the Procedure Component integrates group work and graphing calculators to connect concepts to procedures; and the Part-Task Component represents instruction to develop automaticity. The SPC 4C/ID model presents a unique support for precalculus and calculus teachers in the quest of teaching for learning and transfer of learning across the transition.

Homeschooling in the UnitedStates has grown considerably over the past several decades. This article presents findings from the Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics (FICSMath) survey, a national study of 10,492 students enrolled in tertiary calculus, including 190 students who reported homeschooling for a majority of their high school years. The authors found that, compared with students who received other types of secondary schooling, students who homeschooled: (a) were demographically similar to their peers, (b) earned similar SAT Math scores, and (c) earned higher tertiary calculus grades.