The Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE) project facilitated the infusion of quantitative reasoning (QR) instruction and assessment into undergraduate courses at the City University of New York’s (CUNY’s) three Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Bronx: Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College, and Lehman College.  The program provided training in best practices for QR instruction to approximately two dozen faculty in a wide range of disciplines (e.g., astronomy, chemistry, education, English, mathematics, nursing, and sociology), teaching instructors how to (a) apply QR within a disciplinary context, (b) articulate QR learning goals and objectives, (c) incorporate best practices for teaching QR, (d) adapt and implement strategies for infusing QR into course instruction, and (e) assess the effectiveness of QR initiatives in order to further improve the quality of undergraduate teaching.  NICE also fostered the development of a community of practice across the three institutions.  CUNY faculty interested in QR can now rely on support not just from the NICE project team, but from many of the faculty who participated in the program.

Participating faculty enrolled in either an online summer program or an academic-year program.  Although NICE is chiefly an online course, each instruction program began with a two-day in-person session in which faculty got acquainted with one another and discussed QR pedagogy.  During these sessions, faculty also participated in an assessment activity and discussed the meaning and relevance of QR, with special emphasis on the required reading, Jeffrey Bennett's classic book MATH FOR LIFE.  The online component of NICE consisted of eight units: (1) QR and Making Numbers Meaningful; (2) QR Learning Outcomes; (3) The Brain, Cognition and QR; (4) QR and Writing; (5) Discovery Methods; (6) Representations of Data; (7) QR Assessment; and (8) QR Stereotypes and Culture.  Each unit included a set of readings, videos, hands-on activities, and interactive discussions.  In addition, participating faculty completed several key tasks—activities and assignments in which they developed materials for their own courses—and collaboratively assessed the work completed by their peers.

The NICE instruction program adopted many of the same progressive teaching methods that have proven effective in undergraduate QR instruction.  Faculty engaged in active and collaborative learning using real-world data, reviewed samples of students’ work, evaluated QR assessment instruments, and reviewed a variety of online resources that can be used to engage students and others in meaningful data analysis projects.  The network of CUNY faculty devoted to QR instruction has grown over the course of the project, and the 2018 QR Pedagogy Capstone Conference attracted more than 50 faculty from across CUNY.

Our research on the NICE project has focused on three key questions: (1) To what extent does the NICE program enhance the QR teaching abilities of faculty? (2) How has it influenced the faculty’s efforts to infuse QR into their course instruction? and (3) Has faculty participation in NICE led to QR learning gains among CUNY students?  We have also compared the effectiveness of the summer and academic-year programs.  Our analyses show that faculty who enrolled in the program during the summer were not only more likely to complete the program, but to complete it in a timely fashion.  Surveys and skills assessment administered at the beginning and end of each instruction program demonstrate that NICE is effective in enhancing the capabilities of participating faculty and in promoting a strong commitment to QR instruction.  For example, 94% of faculty agreed that their NICE participation had made them more familiar with new strategies and tools for teaching QR.  The student assessment data, gathered independently by faculty participants, reveal meaningful gains in students’ QR skills as well as their comfort with data analysis and related tasks.

The Bronx is New York’s poorest borough, and Bronx CUNY students are overwhelmingly minority, female, and economically and academically disadvantaged.  By training more than two dozen faculty, NICE has improved the educational experiences of thousands of students.  NICE has also helped faculty beyond CUNY as a result of our dissemination activities.  The instructional materials from the project are readily available on the NICE website (www.teachqr.org), which also includes resources on best practices and tools for engaging students in data analysis.  Moreover, our research on NICE—both existing publications/presentations and those in progress—contributes to our understanding of best practices for faculty development.  Finally, we have worked to ensure that the NICE materials and evaluation results are widely available to educators, policymakers, administrators, and researchers.  These efforts have included more than a dozen presentations, workshops, and scholarly papers.

Last Modified: 04/30/2021
Modified by: Esther I Wilder