Building Capacity: Catalyzing Change in Calculus

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The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at Florida International University will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing the success of students in calculus. Leveraging a partnership with Broward College, this project will implement Modeling Practices in Calculus, a student-centered curriculum in which students learn calculus by engaging in the authentic practices of mathematicians. Such practices include working in teams, looking at problems from different perspectives, and proficiently using terminology and symbols. Learning assistants who are near peers will facilitate learning in the classroom, enabling students to learn from mistakes, give and receive feedback, and help one another learn. The project's research design includes longitudinal measures of student success and the tracking of students who transfer from Broward College to Florida International University. The project will directly affect over 15,000 students enrolled at two HSIs, where over 80% of students are from historically-underrepresented groups.The specific aims of the project include generating new knowledge about the effectiveness of the Modeling Practices Curriculum and how this curriculum fosters learning for highly diverse student populations. Further, it will generate knowledge about faculty adoption practices and institutional change as it establishes an institutional culture to sustain and expand the intervention. The research design includes randomized-control trials as well as multivariate matching methods to establish a strong evidentiary base for the impacts of the Modeling Practices Curriculum and facilitate comparison of student outcomes, both immediate and longitudinal. Over the period of funding, the project will host eight professional development workshops for faculty. The implementation-tested Modeling Practices Curriculum materials, instructional guides, and research finding will be disseminated broadly, to two-year and four-year institutions with diverse student populations that are seeking to enhance the learning of calculus.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.