Building Capacity for Interdisciplinary Quantitative Reasoning Instruction

培养学生S的定量推理能力对于培养精通数字的公民至关重要，他们能够在一个日益由数据驱动的世界中脱颖而出。越来越多的文献表明，在整个课程中包括不同学科的定量推理课程可能有助于学生更好地学习定量推理。作为Ripon学院Catalyst通识教育课程的一部分，所有一年级学生都参加了Catalyst 120：量化推理课程。通过设计，这门课程有一套共同的学习成果和作业，但由不同学科的教师教授，包括生物学、戏剧、心理学和传播学。本项目旨在进一步检验多学科方法在定量推理教学中的有效性。具体地说，该项目将考察特定教师专业发展战略在提高一所小型文理学院教授定量推理能力方面的作用。项目负责人将为教员组织专业发展活动，并研究这些活动的有效性，以帮助教员教授定量推理。因此，该项目可以开发一个基于证据的模型，其他机构可以用来实施跨学科的强大的定量推理。该项目旨在开发和研究跨学科方法教授定量推理的有效性，以及通过实践社区提供这一指导的机构能力增强的影响。在头两年，项目负责人将发起一系列教师学习社区，以进一步发展教师在使用基于证据的教学方法教授定量推理方面的专业知识，在各种学科中创建创新的定量推理材料，并将这些材料应用于他们的Catalyst课程。在第三年，项目团队将与非量化学科的几名教员合作，在他们的领域内创建以量化为重点的课程。一个经过验证的定量推理工具将被用来衡量学生的学习收获，项目团队成员将创建一个新的工具来评估跨学科的量化技能。项目团队期望这个项目将带来全面的制度变革，并将通过教师调查、访谈和课程材料审查来研究这一变化。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Developing student?s quantitative reasoning skills is essential for training numerically literate citizens who can flourish in an increasingly data-driven world. A growing body of literature suggests that including quantitative reasoning courses in different disciplines throughout a curriculum may help students to better learn quantitative reasoning. As a part of the Catalyst general education curriculum at Ripon College, all first-year students enroll in Catalyst 120: Quantitative Reasoning. By design, this course has a common set of learning outcomes and assignments, but is taught by faculty in different disciplines, including Biology, Theatre, Psychology, and Communication. This project aims to further examine the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary approach to teaching quantitative reasoning. Specifically, the project will examine the role of specific faculty professional development strategies for improving the ability of faculty at a small liberal arts college to teach quantitative reasoning. Project leaders will corporate professional development activities for faculty members and study the effectiveness of these activities for helping faculty teach quantitative reasoning. Thus, the project may develop an evidence-based model that other institutions could use to implement robust quantitative reasoning across disciplines.This project is designed to develop and study the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to teaching quantitative reasoning as well as the impact of increasing institutional capacity to provide this instruction through communities of practice. During the first two years, project leaders will initiate a series of Faculty Learning Communities to further develop faculty expertise in teaching quantitative reasoning using evidence-based pedagogies, to create innovative quantitative reasoning materials in a variety of disciplines, and to put these materials into practice in their Catalyst curriculum. In the third year, the project team will work with several faculty members in non-quantitative disciplines to create quantitatively focused courses within their fields. A validated quantitative reasoning instrument will be used to measure student learning gains, and members of the project team will create a new tool for evaluating interdisciplinary quantitative skills. The project team expects that comprehensive institutional change will result from this project and will study this change through faculty surveys, interviews, and review of curricular materials.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.