Entry level mathematics courses remain some of the biggest hurdles to undergraduate student success. Failure rates in Precalculus through Calculus 2 (P2C2) courses are typically 25-50%, with gaps magnified for students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. The collaborative research project Student Engagement in Mathematics through an Institutional Network for Active Learning (SEMINAL) focused on how to effectively enhance inclusive student learning by transforming mathematics instruction away from lecture-based approaches to active learning strategies in large-enrollment, entry-level mathematics courses at universities around the United States. 

Key Findings:

SEMINAL, an NSF funded 7-year project involving more than 120 math faculty at 26 institutions, determined that effective implementation of active learning strategies requires that departments undergo a change in culture. These changes entail effective leadership practices and a collective commitment to implementing inclusive learning strategies, using appropriate data to inform decisions, coordinating courses, building instructor community, and providing professional development.

Effective cultural change relies on four frames: people; structures; power dynamics; and collective beliefs. 

Definitions of active learning vary. SEMINAL adopted Laursen & Rasmussen?s (2019) definition involving rigorous mathematics, student-to-student communication, instructor use of student thinking, and instructor attention to equitable teaching practices. In analyzing over 100 interviews from administrators, faculty and instructors who articulated their conceptions of active learning, we found interviewees emphasized student engagement more than what instructors did to facilitate active learning.

More equitable student learning requires explicit attention: Merely putting students in groups, without attending to participation norms and group dynamics, is likely to maintain inequitable student outcomes. 

Departments in SEMINAL's Networked Improvement Community across diverse institutions tried additional inclusive learning strategies and departmental change efforts not originally envisioned.

Departments with instructors already collaborating on instructional improvement were more successful in responding to the challenges of the pandemic than those without established communication norms before the onset of the crisis.  

Instructors can learn to respond to microaggressions to help increase student belonging. Instructors from SEMINAL who participated in a year-long professional development to help them teach more equitably embraced the process of learning together to help students be more successful in mathematics courses.

Key Change Levers Identified:

• Effective leadership at the course, department, and college levels; 

• Use of appropriate data to inform decisions; 

• Department commitment to implementing inclusive active learning strategies; collectively improving instructional materials to support student collaboration, reasoning, and communication; 

• Course coordination and making those materials available in an organized fashion to future instructors;

• Initial and longitudinal instructor professional development; instructor communities of practice that go beyond course logistics to discuss inclusive teaching strategies; 

• Employing learning assistants to support student learning; 

• Improved learning environments that support peer-to-peer interaction (e.g., movable tables and chairs); student placement practices; 

• Planning for sustainability (start off planning how to handle the ongoing churn in instructors each term, and turnover in departmental and college administrators); include attention to effective teaching and beliefs about teaching in department hiring practices; recruiting strategic members to help drive and sustain change efforts (those with formal positions of power as well as those with passion for making the changes); and 

• Connect to a network with other individuals seeking to make similar changes.

Research Process:

The primary research question, "What conditions, strategies, interventions, and actions at the departmental and classroom levels contribute to the initiation, implementation, and institutional sustainability of active learning in the undergraduate calculus sequence across varied institutions" informed the identification of three research objectives: leveraging case studies, building theory and catalyzing change.

SEMINAL had three phases.  Phase 1 offered the field a retrospective account of models of change that worked. Phase 2 developed theory and insights into the processes by which change focused on active learning can unfold over time, along with the affordances and constraints related to institutional change. Phase 3 provided insights into what types of changes can be made in the absence of external funding, with departments motivated to improve P2C2 courses. The data collection involved extensive interviews of students, instructors, provosts, and others. Interviews were collected by researchers during multi-day site visits (pre-2020) and then via zoom (2020-2022). We surveyed hundreds of P2C2 instructors and thousands of students in courses, and observed courses, to better understand how courses were being taught and experienced by students. 

Researchers developed theory and insights into the processes by which change focused on active learning can unfold over time, along with identifying the affordances and constraints related to institutional change. This application of improvement science, using localized strategies and common measures to institutionalize active learning in undergraduate mathematics, can be used to inform collaborative research in undergraduate education at a range of institutions of higher education.

Our extensive findings have been disseminated in Transformational Change Efforts: Student Engagement in Mathematics through an Institutional Network for Active Learning, a book published by the CBMS and in over 90 book chapters, journal articles, conference proceedings, presentations, and workshops.

Last Modified: 08/08/2023
Modified by: Howard J Gobstein