Collaborative Research: Online Professional Enhancement and Capacity Building for Instructional Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics

该项目旨在为国家利益服务，促进对以在线教学和学习为重点的本科数学教育专业发展的有效实践的实施和理解。目前有效的专业发展模式往往是昂贵的，而且限制谁可以参加，主要是因为它们需要旅行和其他支助，这些支助既不是普遍提供给个人，也不是机构和个人长期可持续的，从而限制了潜在的影响。为此，美国数学协会（MAA）和科罗拉多大学博尔德分校（UCB）将实施和研究一项新的以在线教学和学习为重点的专业发展计划，该计划将面向高等教育专业人员，包括那些由于各种限制而无法旅行的人。其推动力将是确定有效利用在线工具和实践，围绕数学课堂上主动学习的主题提供专业培训，从而在全国范围内对数学教学产生广泛影响，并培养大批具有这一技能的骨干人才。与此相一致，该项目将通过培训新的讲习班提供者，包括那些曾经和仍然很少有机会为专业发展旅行的人，明确努力建设这种能力。该项目将在两个层面上激活两个变革杠杆：(1)授权个人对其教学进行基于研究的变革，以提高学生的学习能力；(2)塑造他们的院系和学科文化以支持这些变革。通过举办40多场研讨会，直接为约1000名数学教师提供服务，该项目将对参与者的知识、技能以及在包容性本科数学教学中采用研究型教学策略产生持久影响。这些影响，反过来，将进入本科数学课堂，使全国各地成千上万的学生受益多年，并在所有类型的机构。这一合作项目将把MAA和UCB的民族志与评估研究小组（E&amp；ER）结合在一起，MAA是在教育学、课程和高等教育数学包容性方面的专业发展的长期来源，E&amp；ER是一个独立的研究小组，在衡量STEM专业发展和制度变革的有效性方面拥有丰富的经验。该项目将在多个层面上运作，以实现几个基本目标。首先，规划、实施、评估和研究研讨会，以产生关于在线专业发展模式最佳实践的新知识。其次，创建一个专业网络，将社区需求与内容专业知识结合起来，为管理复杂过程提供行政支持，并指导沟通计划进入数学社区中服务不足的领域。第三，通过讨论各种数学主题、内容领域和工具来吸引不同兴趣的教师。第四，强调研究性教学、课程设计、评估方法。最后，开发同步和异步方法的战略使用，总体而言，为密集和扩展的在线研讨会开发最佳实践模型。所有讲习班将在MAA教学实践指南（2018年）的框架下创造一个包容性的课堂环境，该指南是基于研究的教学方法纲要。项目设计牢固地建立在有效教学、专业学习、系统变革和测量方面的学术基础上。E&amp；ER研究人员将采用一种研究与评估相结合的方法来衡量在线职业发展的影响，采用Ajzen的计划行为理论与Century等人的成分视角相结合。实施创新，作为衡量个别教师的成长和实施的概念框架，以及这些如何依赖于他们的专业背景和教学环境。E&amp；ER还将跟踪参与项目培训的专业发展领导者的成长，并将评估、研究和传播有效的基于证据的在线专业发展技术的发现，这与项目将在多个层面上运作相呼应。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育转型和改善。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。

This project aims to serve the national interest to advance implementation and understanding of effective practices in delivering online teaching- and learning-focused professional development to undergraduate mathematics educators. Current models for effective professional development often are expensive and restrictive regarding who can participate, largely because they require travel and other support that is neither universally available to individuals nor sustainable in the long term by institutions and individuals, thus limiting the potential impact. To this end, the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) will implement and study a new online teaching- and learning-focused professional development program which will reach higher education professionals, including those who have been less able to travel due to various constraints. The impetus will be to determine effective use of online tools and practices to deliver professional training around themes of active learning in the mathematics classroom, leading to broad impact on mathematics instruction throughout the country, as well as the development of a large cadre of people with this skill set. In line with this, the project will incorporate explicit efforts to build this capacity by training new workshop providers, including those who have had and continue to have scant opportunities to travel for professional development. The project will activate two levers for change at two levels: (1) empowering individuals to make research-based changes to their teaching that will enhance student learning, and (2) shaping their departmental and disciplinary cultures to support those changes. By hosting over 40 workshops and directly serving some 1000 mathematics instructors, the project will make a lasting impact on participant knowledge, skills, and uptake of research-based instructional strategies in inclusive undergraduate mathematics instruction. These effects, in turn, will reach into undergraduate mathematics classrooms to benefit many thousands of students across the country for many years, and across all types of institutions.This collaborative project will bring together the MAA, a long-standing source of professional development in pedagogy, curriculum, and inclusion for post-secondary mathematics, and UCB’s Ethnography & Evaluation Research (E&ER) group, an independent research group with rich experience in measuring effectiveness of professional development and institutional change in STEM. The project will operate at multiple levels to achieve several underlying goals. First, planning, implementing, evaluating, and researching the workshops to generate new knowledge regarding best practices for online professional development models. Second, creating a professional network that aligns community needs with content expertise, provides administrative support for managing complex processes, and directs a communication plan to reach into underserved areas of the mathematics community. Third, attracting instructors with varying interests by addressing a variety of mathematical topics, content areas, and tools. Fourth, emphasizing research-based approaches to instruction, course design, assessment. And finally, developing strategic use of synchronous and asynchronous approaches and, overall, developing best practice models for intensive and extended online workshops. All workshops will create an inclusive classroom environment under the framework offered by the MAA Instructional Practices Guide (2018), a compendium of research-based approaches to teaching. The project design is firmly grounded in scholarship on effective instruction, professional learning, system change, and measurement. The E&ER investigators will apply a research-with-evaluation approach to measure impact of online professional development, employing Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior coupled with a component perspective of Century et.al. to implementing innovations, as conceptual frameworks for measuring individual instructors’ growth and implementation and how these depend on their professional backgrounds and instructional contexts. Mirroring the multiple levels in which the project will operate, E&ER will also track the growth of professional development leaders who take part in project trainings, and will evaluate, research, and disseminate findings on effective evidence-based techniques for online professional development. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.