P. Gavin LaRose, Mathematics | 2022-2023
With this project the Department of Mathematics will extend its work revising Math 105 (Data, Functions, and Graphs) and Math 115 (Calculus I) to Math 116 (Calculus II), and make this course sequence (which together are the Department’s Introductory Program in undergraduate mathematics) a coherent, inclusive and equity-focused whole. We will accomplish this through a “Foundational Curriculum Collaboration” with CLRT and its Foundational Course Initiative (FCI). The work in Math 105 and Math 115 has taken place over the past five years, and has resulted in a dramatic revision of the assessment and instructional support models used in Math 105 (Data, Functions, and Graphs) and Math 115 (Calculus I). With this project, we will extend this work to Math 116, with the goal of significantly improving how well it, and all of the courses in the Introductory Program, support students from populations that have traditionally been pushed out and excluded from STEM fields. Our previous work was in conjunction with CRLT’s Foundational Course Initiative (FCI), and the current project will establish a new collaborative model in which we work with FCI and the College to make these important changes.
The net impact of this work will be to bring into a sustainable and coherent state the curricular model and instruction of three courses that serve in excess of 4,500 students a year. It will introduce and refine an appropriate level of repeatable mastery assessment in all three courses, reducing the weight of high-stakes exams and making the assessment in the courses more equitable and transparent. It will expand the support we provide the over 150 instructors teaching these courses to enable them to be more effective at inclusive, equity-focused instruction. And it will create a more sustainable model for the administration of our Introductory Program as a whole, allowing continuation of this work going forward.