Championing Practices for Scaling Implementation of Developmental Math Reform

Mathematics pathways have proven to be promising approaches to addressing the challenge of math serving as a barrier for postsecondary students. Despite evidence of their effectiveness, these efforts are still facing challenges as it pertains to their spread and scale. Our paper seeks to examine the work of actors in two- and four-year colleges who champion math pathways in their institutions. We examine championing practices to understand how actors advocate for the scaling of math pathways at their college and whether or not these practices are successful. Our findings surface four championing practices that these actors engage in, and reveal how these champions draw on their institutions’ structure, policies, processes, and practices to resource efforts to scale math pathways.

Presenters:

Angela Knotts, Mathematics Research Associate, WestEd

Carlos Sandoval, Improvement Specialist, WestEd

Bethany Sansing-Helton, Mathematics Professor, Madison College

Session location:

Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Floor: Level 2, Missouri

 

 

Curricular Relevance for Equity and Engagement in Mathematics

During this session, we’ll explore an iterative process in which faculty can develop contextualized math curriculum to increase student engagement and sense-making, and create a more equitable learning environment. Studies strongly suggest that relevant and authentic contextualization allows students to make meaningful connections to what they are learning, making it easier to internalize, transfer, and retain new concepts.

We will describe faculty-led work contextualizing concepts in mathematics to align with the needs and interests of specific learner groups; a process that is subject agnostic. We’ll then hear from instructors and students as we explore the impact of using contextualized curricular materials (e.g. social justice and Indigenous contexts) in a learning environment.

Coaching for Change: Building Leadership Capacity to Implement and Scale Pathways Reforms

Learn how administrative coaching and leadership development are helping institutional leaders effectively lead organizational change and improve student learning outcomes in an NSF-funded project about scaling pathways reforms. We’ll cover a variety of capacity-building methods, including coaching, change management tenets, team priority setting, and consensus-building. This session will also highlight the importance of effective communication strategies to guide organizational change in complex reform efforts.

Coaching for Change: Build Leadership Capacity to Scale Improvements

Carnegie Math Pathways Administrator Coaches, Margo Keys and Stephanie Delaney, will walk through how administrative coaching and leadership development can help build capacity for spearheading organizational change and improve student learning outcomes through institutional reforms.

With limited resources, institutional leaders must carefully invest professional development funds toward methods with proven outcomes. The goal of this session is to demonstrate those proven outcomes and to engage participants in activities and learnings from a National Science Foundation-funded project on leadership coaching to support the implementation of complex institutional reforms, such as Carnegie Math Pathways. Participants will engage in two cycles of learn-reflect-share, each focused on a case study of pathways implementation.

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The Fault in our Gold Stars: Moving from Merit-based to Mastery Grading to Support Student Success

Traditional systems of grading tend to reward behavior rather than knowledge and demand endless workarounds by instructors to motivate students. In this session, we’ll share how Carnegie Math Pathways is supporting institutions to learn about and test new approaches to assess student learning equitably and motivate their persistence in Quantway and Statway courses.

Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College math faculty will share how they’ve changed their course grading as well as preliminary results and learnings from the first term of implementation. Through interactive Jamboard and chat prompts, participants will reflect on how current grading policies and practices lead to inequitable outcomes. They will also have the opportunity to consider more equitable grading models and try a sample alternative assessment tool.

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The Adult Numeracy in the Digital Age Project: A technology-enabled mathematics course for adult learners

Numeracy and digital literacy are critical for college, career, and citizenship. But nearly a third of the adult population in the United States does not have sufficient numeracy skills to manage critical quantitative tasks in their daily lives and over 16 percent have low digital literacy skills. Modern technology has the potential to significantly improve access to and the quality of adult education by offering flexibility, adaptivity, and responsiveness.

During this session, we’ll walk through a new online adult numeracy course developed in the Adult Numeracy in the Digital Age (ANDA) project, a research project funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and part of the IES-funded Adult Skills Research Network.

The design of the ANDE course centers on relevant, contextualized math content, collaborative and active learning, adaptive and personalized math content scaffolds, and social-emotional supports promoting self-efficacy and a sense of belonging. The course also integrates supports for the development of digital literacy skills.

As a participant, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in activities from the curriculum, as well as demo the adaptive technology platform. We’ll also invite you to provide feedback on the course design, curriculum, and functionality, and consider how the curricular and instructional design can inform your own instruction.

Are you attending the AERA 2022 Annual Meeting? Join one of our sessions!

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