NSF Award
2216197
This project will serve the national interest by improving instruction in introductory quantitative literacy courses intended for undergraduates pursuing degrees outside of STEM. Quantitative literacy improves decision making related to health, finances, and citizenship, empowering people to make informed decisions. This project will provide professional development for instructors of Quantitative Reasoning (QR) courses at 2-year and 4-year institutions across Ohio. These courses are in the process of being standardized, guaranteeing credits can transfer between any of the state’s public institutions of higher education. The project intends to prepare pairs of mathematics instructors to serve as institutional leaders who will support their colleagues within a larger network of QR educators across the state. Over a 3-year period, the network plans to span 24 institutions and engage over 160 faculty. Like many other states, Ohio’s mathematics teaching workforce is diverse; it includes adjuncts, annually contracted faculty, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and high school teachers who teach dual-enrollment courses. The project hopes to address how best to prepare and support a broad instructional workforce to teach high-quality QR at scale. The project’s network model and findings could be adapted to additional gateway courses (e.g., College Algebra, Precalculus, Calculus, Statistics, and Data Science) by other states or multi-institutional partnerships.<br/><br/>The project team will approach the project's professional development and research through a cycle of implementation and revision. This iterative process is meant to strengthen the network and its mechanisms over the life of the project. Faculty professional development will focus on an inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach to QR instruction, placing instructional quality front and center. The network will contribute to an Ohio QR pathway aligned with the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s statewide program for student transfer and success. Course content and instructional strategies will be aligned with statewide QR requirements, helping participating faculty weave inquiry into their teaching. Faculty will focus on designing and introducing cognitively demanding QR assessments and offering students the chance to engage in high-level mathematics communication. The project’s research agenda plans to focus on instructional quality as measured by the IQA toolkit, a tool that only recently have been applied to higher education. Classroom observations and analysis of student work will generate new knowledge on how QR instructors might engage their students in cognitively demanding tasks and high-level mathematical communication. The project evaluation will be supported by an experienced evaluator and a highly-qualified advisory board that will assess the project’s progress towards its goals. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
