MATH-GAINS: Growing as Adaptive Instructors in Gateway to STEM Courses

该项目将解决国家对提高科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）劳动力数量和质量的需求。沿着这些思路，微积分课程是通往STEM专业和职业的门户；然而，这些课程的全国成功率仍然太低。该项目的前提是，为了提高学生在微积分课程中的学习和成功，教学实践需要发生转变。虽然过去的努力已经产生了各种各样的微积分教学最佳实践，但这些实践仍然没有像期望的那样广泛使用。中佛罗里达大学（UCF）数学-增益项目将创建一个可用于解决这一国家需求的部门模型。首先，MATH-GAINS将培养一种文化，在这种文化中，数学系的教师将坚持在他们的微积分课程教学中应用最佳实践。教师将以团队形式学习和实践这些教学策略，并衡量学生在课程中的学习情况。该项目将提供专业发展、反馈和反思的机会。将研究采用这些教学策略的过程，以确定使大型研究型大学的教师能够成功实施这些方法的因素，以便其他部门和机构可以采用这种模式。此外，MATH-GAINS将允许研究中学后微积分的最佳教学实践。30名学生的目标群体将在三个学期的微积分序列中持续受到影响，从而提高学生对数学的理解，提高这些学生的保留率和毕业率，并为研究人员和教师提供关于循证教学累积效应的知识。MATH-GAINS项目将以研究为基础的变革策略为基础，其实施设计将利用这些变革理论确定的关键特征来改变数学系的文化。教师将参与长期干预，使他们能够灵活地选择符合自己兴趣的教学策略。每年，由教职员工和研究生助教组成的学习社区将从文献中学习，从基于证据的教学实践菜单中选择，为涉及这些实践的项目开发学习材料，并在秋季和春季学期实施他们的项目。改革后的教学观察方案将用于评估循证实践的实施水平，促使教师反思，并提出改进途径。教师将收集学生学习的数据，以评估他们在不同学生群体中实施的微积分实践的有效性。持续的评估将为建立制度变革的模式建立知识库，在这种模式下，基于证据的教学实践在微积分中的应用将成为标准和永久的教师实践。每年学习社区的教师参与者将把他们的项目传播给当地、地区和全国的其他教师。

This project will address the national need to improve quantity and increase quality of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Along these lines, calculus courses are a gateway to STEM majors and careers; however, the national success rate in these courses is still too low. The premise of the project is that to increase student learning and success in calculus courses, a shift in teaching practices will need to occur. While past efforts have produced a variety of best practices for teaching calculus, these practices are still not used as widely as desired. The University of Central Florida (UCF) MATH-GAINS project will create a departmental model that can be used to address this national need. First, MATH-GAINS will develop a culture in which Department of Mathematics faculty members persistently apply best practices in their teaching of calculus courses. Instructors will work in teams to learn about and practice these teaching strategies and measure student learning in their courses. The project will provide professional development, feedback, and opportunities for reflection. The process of adopting these teaching strategies will be studied to identify the factors that enable faculty at a large, research-intensive university to successfully implement such methods so that the model could be adapted by other departments and institutions. Additionally, MATH-GAINS will allow studies of best teaching practices for postsecondary calculus. A target group of 30 students will be persistently impacted over the three-semester calculus sequence, resulting in increased student understanding of the mathematics, retention and graduation rates for these students, and knowledge about the cumulative effect of evidence-based instruction for researchers and faculty. The MATH-GAINS project will build on research-based change strategies, and its implementation design will use critical features identified by those theories of change to shift the culture of mathematics faculty. Instructors will participate in long-term interventions that allow them the flexibility to choose instructional strategies that match their interests. Each year, learning communities consisting of faculty members and graduate teaching assistants will learn from the literature, select from a menu of evidence-based teaching practices, develop learning materials for projects involving those practices, and implement their projects during both fall and spring semesters. The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol will be used to assess the level of implementation of evidence-based practices, prompt faculty reflection, and suggest avenues for improvement. Faculty will collect data on student learning to assess the effectiveness of their implemented practices for diverse student populations in calculus. On-going evaluation will build the knowledge base for the creation of a model for institutional change, where application of evidence based teaching practices in calculus becomes standard and perpetual faculty practice. Faculty participants from each year's learning community will disseminate their projects to other faculty locally, regionally, and nationally.