Collaborative Research: Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE)

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Quantitative reasoning (QR), the contextualized use of numbers and data in a way that involves critical thinking skills, is essential for informed decision making, career advancement, and full participation in civic life. Most students do not have sufficient opportunities to learn the QR skills needed for personal and professional success, and this disadvantage is particularly acute among students from underrepresented minority populations. In response to this need, two Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Hostos Community College and Lehman College will implement a professional development (PD) project, Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE), for 24 faculty in those two institutions along with Bronx Community College faculty (also an HSI). The project will build on prior work in which faculty members learned how to infuse QR into courses ranging from biology, chemistry, and mathematics, to African and African-American studies, history, and political science.Over the course of the project, faculty volunteers will participate either in an intensive 10-week summer program or in a 10-month program offered during the academic year. The NICE project will teach faculty how to (a) apply QR within the context of their subject areas, (b) articulate QR learning goals and objectives, (c) incorporate best practices for teaching QR, (d) adapt and implement strategies for infusing QR into course instruction, and (e) assess the effectiveness of QR initiatives. The same progressive teaching methods that have proven effective in undergraduate QR instruction will be used to teach faculty within the NICE program; specifically, faculty will engage in active and collaborative learning using real-world data. Toward establishing an adaptable model for faculty PD in QR that offers a comparison between an extended academic year experience and a more intense summer-only experience, the project team will focus on three key research questions: (1) How does the NICE program enhance the QR teaching abilities of faculty? (2) How does the NICE program impact faculty efforts to infuse QR into their course instruction?; and (3) How does faculty participation in NICE translate into real QR learning gains among CUNY students?