Building Capacity for Interdisciplinary Quantitative Reasoning Instruction

发展学生吗?美国的定量推理技能对于培养具有数字素养的公民至关重要，这些公民可以在日益数据驱动的世界中蓬勃发展。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。作为里彭学院Catalyst通识教育课程的一部分，所有一年级学生都要参加Catalyst 120：定量推理课程。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。该项目旨在进一步研究多学科方法在定量推理教学中的有效性。具体来说，该项目将研究特定的教师专业发展策略在提高一所小型文理学院教师教授定量推理的能力方面的作用。项目负责人将为教师组织专业发展活动，并研究这些活动的有效性，以帮助教师教授定量推理。因此，该项目可以开发一个基于证据的模型，其他机构可以使用该模型来实施跨学科的可靠定量推理。该项目旨在开发和研究跨学科定量推理教学方法的有效性，以及通过实践社区提高机构能力提供这种教学的影响。在前两年，项目负责人将发起一系列的教师学习社区，以进一步发展教师在使用循证教学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，并将这些材料应用到他们的Catalyst课程中。在第三年，项目团队将与非定量学科的几位教师合作，在他们的领域内创建以定量为重点的课程。一个经过验证的定量推理工具将用于衡量学生的学习收益，项目团队成员将创建一个评估跨学科定量技能的新工具。项目团队期望从这个项目中产生全面的制度变革，并将通过教师调查、访谈和课程材料审查来研究这种变革。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.