| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 21, 2012 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 21, 2012 |
| Award Number: | 1225915 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ron Buckmire
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2012 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $550,611.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $550,611.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
577 WESTERN AVE WESTFIELD MA US 01085-2580 (413)572-5622 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
577 Western Avenue Westfield MA US 01086-1630 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | TUES-Type 2 Project |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
This project helps complete Discovering the Art of Mathematics, a library of 10 full-length, stand-alone learning guides for Mathematics for Liberal Arts (MLA) and other cognate courses. Each volume provides curriculum materials sufficient for a semester-long course. The pedagogy is a form of inquiry-based learning that is a descendent of the Socratic dialogue. The mathematical content is both sophisticated and accessible, with deep and natural connections to the arts, history, culture, philosophy, humanism, and literature throughout.
During Phase 1 of the project, these unique curriculum materials sparked considerable learning gains and affective benefits in the cohort of over 1,000 students who used the materials. In addition to the completion of the materials, the Type 2 award will support the development of teacher resource guides, assessment materials, and resources for the expanded use of inquiry in general education mathematics courses. It will also support nine traveling professional development workshops that will help develop communities of inquiry-based learning practitioners from the generally under-supported cohort of teachers that most often teach MLA. It will also support the creation and implementation of assessment tools that further evaluate the student learning gains and affective benefits of using our materials. Finally, it supports the high-profile, nationwide dissemination of the Discovering the Art of Mathematics library and the scholarly work it generates, helping to transform the way MLA is taught and learned.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Discovering the Art of Mathematics (DAoM) provides the following vision for contemporary mathematics classrooms:
All students should be actively engaged in authentic mathematical experiences that
- are both challenging and intellectually stimulating,
- provide meaningful cognitive and metacognitive gains, and,
- nurture healthy and informed perceptions of mathematics, mathematical ways of thinking, and the ongoing impact of mathematics not only on STEM fields but also on the liberal arts and humanities.
DAoM was supported by a gift from Mr. Harry Lucas, by NSF0836943 and by NSF1225915. DAoM responds to the well-documented need for more active involvement of mathematics students in the learning process. The focus of our of project is to provide:
- Curriculum materials and teacher guides that support student centered, inquiry-based learning,
- Provide resources to help teachers explore and implement inquiry-based learning in their classrooms, and,
- Provide professional development workshops for teachers to explore inquiry-based teaching and learning.
Curriculum Materials
DAoM provides a free library of 11 inquiry-based learning (IBL) guides on selected topics each suitable to form the curriculum for a semester-long, college level Mathematics for Liberal Arts (MLA) course. These materials are designed with a focus on investigations, tasks, experiments, constructions, data collection and discussion prompts rather than transcribed lectures and worked-out sample problems followed by banks of routine exercises. Teacher materials for these guides are also available. In addition to their primary use in MLA, our materials have been successfully used in introduction to proof courses, in high schools, in home schools and in Math Circles.
IBL Resources
The transition to an inquiry-based mathematics classroom is difficult for many teachers because they have so little experience with it. The DAoM website provides a wealth of resources for teachers including the comprehensive online book ``Discovering the Art of Teaching and Learning Mathematics Using Inquiry’’ which we wrote to help teachers learn how to transform their classroom into ones where inquiry is the dominant form of teaching and learning. This teacher guide to IBL is supported by frequent blogs, a newsletter and a full media gallery that includes videos of IBL in action, images of student work and student reflections.
Workshops
DAoM has developed and offered travelling professional development workshops where teachers:
- Experience what mathematical inquiry feels like,
- Understand and practice ways to create classroom environments where productive, safe and deep mathematical inquiry can take place, and
- Investigate particular content areas that may connect with their students.
Broad Impact
DAoM has developed and run 28 regional and national professional development workshops. We have given 24 presentations at national conferences. Our inquiry-based learning guides are downloaded at the rate of 10,000 books per year. Our newsletter has over 1,000 subscribers, our website has over 36,000 visitors per year and we have over 350 teachers registered for our faculty accounts with access to teacher materials.
DAoM curriculum materials have been used on our campus as the primary curricula in 100 semester-long sections of our MLA course, serving over 2400 students. Externally there have been 30 official reviewers and beta testers of DAoM curriculum materials.
Intellectual Merit
DAoM has resulted in 11 peer-reviewed publications, one awaiting publication and one currently under review. Based on the strength of our work we were invited to guest edit the special edition ``Using Inquiry-Based Learning in Mathematics for Liberal Arts Courses’’ of the journal PRIMUS. (Vol. 25, No. 3, 2015.) Reports from official reviewers and beta testers have been uniformly positive.
Data collected from over 450 matched pre/post surveys over three years shows that students in DAoM classrooms had statistically significant positive gains in the areas of: understanding the field of mathematics, their thinking about mathematics, their feelings about mathematics and educational gains associated with participation.
Information on all aspects of the project (including free downloads of all of our books: 11 IBL learning guides and the teacher guide) is available from our website https://www.artofmathematics.org .
Last Modified: 12/27/2017
Modified by: Julian Fleron
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
