The Spread of Inquiry-Based Learning in Undergraduate Mathematics: An Ecosystem Approach to Studying a Community of Educational Change

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Grounded in the context and practice of an effort to reform the teaching and learning of college mathematics, this WIDER research project applies an ecosystems approach to conduct three interrelated studies that investigate the development, growth, and sustainability of an established mathematics education community whose members are proponents of inquiry-based learning (IBL Math). The research project identifies, clarifies, and iteratively examines the elements of a professional community that supports and sustains reform in higher education and investigates the relative impacts of top-down and bottom-up approaches to the diffusion of innovation. The research site is defined as a professional community of mathematicians who are dedicated to the reform of the teaching and learning of college mathematics based on the Socratic methods of R.L. Moore, a renowned topologist and teacher of mathematics. The historical study examines the evolution of the community, focusing the sources of the challenges it faces and promise for the future. A network analysis study investigates the linkages between people, university programs, and a private foundation that champions inquiry-based learning in college mathematics. An uptake study examines the use of inquiry-based learning among past participants in workshops, focusing on the long-term impact on individuals of the workshops and other forms of community support. The mixed-methods set of studies investigates two research questions: What human, structural, and intellectual elements emerge as important to the past development, current growth, and future sustainability of the IBL Math reform movement when it is viewed as a dynamic ecosystem of interlinked people and university programs? What useful lessons are offered to other communities engaged in STEM education reform?