A Seven College Collaboration for Integrating Inquiry

A Seven College Collaboration for Integrating Inquiry-Based Learning, Mathematics Modeling and Technology into the Mathematics Curriculum (SCCIMT)

Co-PI's: Jack Winn, Margaret Groman, Carol Freeman, Constant Goutziers,
Stuart Boersma, Adam Stinchcombe, Alan McCoy, and
Sandeep Singh

Narrative:

This two-year proposal is submitted by a Seven College Collaboration for Integrating Inquiry-Based Learning, Mathematics Modeling and Technology into the Mathematics Curriculum (SCCIMT). The seven schools which represent a subset of the New York State Coalition (NYSC) of some 30 two- and four-year colleges, will adapt and adopt materials and educational practices developed by the principal investigators of the NSF Mathematics Across the Curriculum (MATC) projects (mentioned later in the narrative) as well as other publicly and privately supported Mathematics, Science, and Technology (MST) projects. The seven schools are SUNY Oswego, SUNY Farmingdale, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Brockport, Adirondack Community College, St. John Fisher College, and Alfred University. Faculty and administrators at these institutions are committed to institutional-wide reform and are endorsing the programmatic changes outlined in this proposal.

The objectives are: to increase the faculty’s knowledge of pedagogy and scholarship in mathematics and its applications; to promote learning by inquiry in the context of mathematics, science, and technology; to emphasize to faculty the importance of mathematical modeling in courses; to demonstrate how faculty in mathematics and in other disciplines can cooperate to develop interdisciplinary courses and instructional materials suitable for implementation at two and four-year schools; and to promote effective communication between two- and four-year institutions and users of mathematics in non-academic environments. These objectives, ambitious as they are, can be achieved by the collaborating group (SCCIMT), partnering with the principal investigators of the MATC and other national MST projects to address the following themes: mathematical modeling, Inquiry-Based Learning, partnerships, technology, and programmatic change. The collective efforts will produce a repertoire of instructional methods and a core group of resource faculty from which the other faculty of the SCCIMT and the NYSC colleges can draw.

SUNY Oswego will be the lead institution to coordinate this collaborative effort. The commitment to institutional reform at the schools in our group has been framed by the recommendations in Shaping the Future (Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Education & Human Resources, 1996), as well as several recent summary articles on “learning centered” campuses (Angelo, 1987; Barr & Tagg, 1995). These sources argue that new approaches to teaching and learning require broad changes in the way colleges and universities operate. The SUNY Oswego administration and the faculty who have developed these initiatives, are prepared to make these changes, some of which will take place under our NSF-funded project SUNY Oswego Institution-Wide Reform of Science, Math, & Technology Instruction (DUE9850070). The other schools in SCCIMT have also made commitments to institutional reform. We feel that the intellectual resources and the desire for change already exist on campuses. We intend to tap into and mobilize these by involving larger numbers of faculty, staff, administrators, and students than are currently affiliated with our group. We will discuss and debate the best ways of institutionalizing change, so that the improvements we stimulate with this grant can be self-sustaining and continue well beyond the life of the grant itself. Our strategy is to start with key people on each campus who can implement new projects and initiate dialogue to sustain the effort.

1. Local project directors on each campus will be the co-principal investigators (Co-PIs). Their responsibilities will include:

· Coordination, adaptation and implementation of the campus' institutional reform projects addressing SCCIMT goals.

· Coordination of bi-directional communication and dissemination between SCCIMT and individual campuses.

· Communication with the creators of previously developed materials and educational practices.

2. Sponsored participants will be local faculty members invited by the SCCIMT upon recommendation of the local project director. They will be responsible for adapting, implementing, and reporting on campus reform projects.

3. Non-sponsored participants will be recruited by the local project directors and sponsored participants. The latter will work with non-sponsored participants as part of a wide reaching faculty development initiative to incorporate SCCIMT identified materials and methodologies into the curriculum.

The activities will take place in four stages. The first will consist of planning meetings in the spring of 1999. In the second stage, participants will adapt and adopt materials and teaching practices during the summer of 1999. The third stage will involve implementation during the fall semester of 1999 and the spring semester of 2000. During the final stage, in spring 2000, participants will make adjustments and communicate their experiences with SCCIMT. Project evaluation will be a continuous process during the cycle. The entire cycle will be repeated in 2000 and 2001.

Goal 1. Course & Curriculum Improvement -- Strengthen existing Mathematics, Science, and Technology (MST) programs and develop new interdisciplinary courses using the criteria for excellence as defined by the state and national mathematics and science education reform standards.

Objective for Goal 1: SUNY Oswego and Adirondack Community College are integrating mathematical modeling components into existing course offerings. SUNY Farmingdale is creating a Center for Applied Mathematics to incorporate real-world problems in their curriculum. SUNY Oneonta will incorporate technology and Inquiry-Based Learning in linear algebra and differential equations courses. St. John Fisher College is developing six new MST courses for the preparation of pre-service teachers. SUNY Brockport will expand the Maki-Winston Model [7] to engage students in solutions of real-world industrial problems. Alfred University will adapt and adopt interdisciplinary projects from Project INTERMATH [6] and ILAP [20] for use in calculus, differential equations and applied statistics. SUNY Farmingdale and Alfred University will be responsible for the coordination of activities leading to the achievement of Goal 1.

Goal 2. Faculty Development -- Provide sustained opportunities for faculty development in the area of Inquiry-Based Learning, which promotes conceptual understanding, problem solving, and critical thinking in MST courses.

Objective for Goal 2: During the May 1999 meeting, there will be one day workshop at which faculty from the SCCIMT will work on developing Inquiry-Based Learning strategies. Faculty will then be cognizant of these strategies when they begin designing their projects. During Summer 2000, the consortium will host an Inquiry-Based Learning conference at St. John Fisher College for its participants as well as for faculty from all the other colleges and universities in the NYSC. SUNY Oswego and St. John Fisher College will be responsible for coordination of activities leading to the achievement of Goal 2.

Goal 3. Partnerships -- Enhance existing and develop new partnerships with school districts, as well as regional and state businesses, to improve MST programs by emphasizing mathematical modeling in the majority of our mathematics course offerings.

Objective for Goal 3: Using the Towson State Model [26], each participating school will establish partnerships with area school districts in its region.

Goal 4. Programmatic Change -- Establish a mechanism for the schools of the SCCIMT to sustain and expand the materials and teaching practices developed through this collective effort.

Objective for Goal 4: SUNY Oswego has just been awarded an NSF grant (DUE9850070) to carry out institution-wide reform in science, mathematics, and technology instruction. This SCCIMT, with SUNY Oswego's leadership, will help schools adjust already existing systems of accounting and support for instruction and transform institutional attitudes toward interdisciplinary efforts and professional engagement in innovative pedagogies relating to MST courses.

During the past seven years, mathematics and science faculty from the NYSC, directed by Jack Narayan and John Winn, has responded to the call of their professional organizations to actively engage and involve their students in the process of learning. Cooperative learning strategies have been introduced to increase students’ achievement, create positive relations, and explore alternative learning styles. SUNY Central Administration and the individual colleges provided significant costshare for three NSF Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement Grants (UFE -- DUE9455113, DUE9653446, and DUE9752736) and one NSF Course and Curriculum Development grant (CCD -- DUE9455638). The most recent UFE grant workshop was held in Albany, New York, and featured the project directors of seven NSF-funded national MATC projects that focus on promoting interdisciplinary courses in MST (see Bibliography [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], and [7]).

Building upon the previous UFE and CCD grants, SCCIMT is now adequately prepared to adapt and adopt materials and educational practices developed by the MATC and other MST principal investigators.

Share plans for campus efforts; identify sponsored participants; establish a structure for inter-campus communications; plan for May 1999 meeting of PIs and sponsored participants of all campuses

Presentation of individual campus efforts to the SCCIMT; implementation of inter-campus communication channels to facilitate joint work on specific sponsored thematic projects; Conduct a one-day Inquiry-Based Learning workshop; and plan for an Inquiry-Based Learning conference to be held in the Summer of 2000

Sharing of progress reports and identifying the second-year sponsored participants; planning for an April 2000 meeting of all participants

Evaluation of year one and first combined meeting; planning for year two; sharing of experiences of campus efforts

Themes Contributed To Consortium Modeling, Inquiry-Based Learning, Programmatic Change

Following the recommendation of an external program review, Oswego intends to provide increased awareness of the varied utility and value of mathematics in industry and the sciences. The approach will be multifaceted and will include the use of math modeling throughout the curriculum. Starting with the core courses of Calc I, II, and Statistics I, Oswego plans to infuse modeling and applications in all appropriate mathematics courses, forming a unifying theme that culminates in a capstone project for majors. The college believes that this broad comprehensive approach focusing on basic courses will impact a much larger group of students than just those who are majoring in mathematics. During the period of the grant, the Mathematics Department will concentrate on the core courses of the first two years, which are taken by all mathematics, mathematics education, science and business majors.

Farmingdale will establish a Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM) to provide every Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology (SMET) student with an applied learning experience. Guided by the work of Martha Siegel, Director of the Applied Mathematics Laboratory at Towson University and Dan Maki, CAM will invite corporations and government agencies to submit research projects that will be investigated by teams of students under faculty supervision. CAM projects, multidisciplinary and comprehensive in nature, will produce "spin-off" mini-projects that will be appropriate for introductory and upper-division courses.

Academic year 99-00 Students work in groups on faculty supervised projects, site visits, Formal project reports for sponsors, make live presentations

Institutionalization Integrate CAM in the rest of the curriculum, more faculty development

Courses Experience in Industrial and Applied Science- (new), Finite Mathematics, Calculus, Statistics, Numerical Analysis

Themes Gained From Consortium Inquiry-Based Learning, Programmatic Change, Technology

Brockport is currently developing a Computational Science-Business-Technology (CBT) program to provide students with the opportunity to learn mathematics by solving problems in the real world. Its objective in this proposal is to adapt and expand the Maki-Winston model [19] to afford a pool of approximately 600 Brockport students the opportunity to work on real world industrial problems under faculty supervision. Two teams of two faculty members each from business and computational science departments will plan student work on industrial projects

assigned projects. Students prepare a project report for the sponsor and make live presentations to their peers and the faculty

Institutionalization Integrate the activities in the math program, more faculty development

In Oneonta, symbolic algebra based calculus courses have been offered for the past six years. A number of faculty have taught ODE and LA courses with a strong technology component, including pieces of the national projects [27] and [28]. It is Oneonta's goal under this proposal to fully implement these important initiatives.

Summer 99 three faculty will study the appropriate technical and topic specific information required to teach in this new setting.

Institutionalization In 1997, the College at Oneonta adopted a Universal Computer Access for Students program (UnCAS). As part of this program the College encourages increased integration of discipline specific technology into the curriculum. The proposed implementation of projects [27] and [28] in the ODE and LA offerings will serve this goal and bring the mathematics program in-line with nationwide developments.

Themes Gained From Consortium Inquiry-Based Learning, Technology, Programmatic Change,

Mathematics faculty at ACC are committed to reform efforts, including the use of technology in the classroom, the adoption of the Harvard Consortium Calculus, the revamping of Introductory Algebra, and the use of collaborative learning. In this proposal the department will collect a set of real world problems that occur in the local workplace and in the local community. Modules will be developed that connect the "family of functions approach" to specific local interests such as the resort business of Lake George, the environment of Adirondack Park, the paper mill and medical catheter industries. These models will be incorporated into courses throughout the mathematics curriculum, from introductory level through sophomore level. The modules will provide the basis to pose mathematical questions, which can be answered using tools from the mathematics class.

Alfred will develop a large resource of interdisciplinary projects for use in Calculus, Differential Equations, Data Analysis for Environmental Science, and Applied Statistics. A mathematician and a faculty member from a partner discipline will jointly develop projects that will be directly tied in with work that students are doing in their respective fields of study. These projects will also introduce students to concepts and skills they will study in later courses. As in [Arney, 1997], each project will be introduced to the class by the co-author from the partner discipline and the co-author will be invited back to the classroom to hear student presentations of their results and to discuss how future courses will build on the results of the project.

Time Line

Institutionalization Alfred has historically had a strong commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and will certainly facilitate the implementation of this project.

Courses New MST courses for pre-service teachers--3 mathematics courses and 3 science courses: Mathematical Explorations in the Real Number System; Math Explorations in the Sciences; Heat and Motion in Chemical Systems; Dynamics of the Physical World; Geometric Perspectives with Technology; Biological and Environmental Systems.

St. John Fisher College (SJFC) currently offers a newly initiated (fall 1998) teacher-preparation program that immerses pre-service teachers in a learning environment aligned with state and national standards. The program is designed to deepen content knowledge and promote teaching competencies in mathematics, science, and technology through Inquiry-Based and Problem-Based Learning. The SJFC project will develop six courses, as well as a Culminating Experience and MST Project Seminar course. Throughout the curriculum, mathematical content will be taught within Problem-Based situations arising in scientific contexts so that the reflexive connections between mathematics and science are constantly reinforced in a way that fully utilizes technology.

Institutionalization SJFC has historically had a strong commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and will certainly facilitate the implementation of this project.

Jack Narayan, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics and Interim Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at SUNY Oswego has served as project director on several national and state grants for mathematics reform and is currently a co-director of the SUNY Oswego Institution-Wide Reform of Science, Math, & Technology Instruction DUE9850070. As project director, he will be the liaison to NSF and the project directors of the national projects.

John Winn, Chair and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics at SUNY Farmingdale, was the 1998 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the New York Metro Chapter of the Mathematics Association of America. He is the local co-director of the Long Island Consortium for Interconnected Learning (NSF MATC initiative) and has been very actively involved in that activity. He will serve as the liaison to the LICIL.

Margaret Groman, Associate Professor and Chair of the Mathematics Department at SUNY Oswego, is committed to effecting change in the mathematics programs at SUNY Oswego by making applications of mathematics a major component of the courses offered by the department.

Constant Goutziers, Associate Professor of Mathematics at SUNY Oneonta, spearheaded the introduction of symbolic computation into the College's mathematics curriculum. He has worked with Derive, Maple, and Mathematica at a variety of complexity levels, ranging from calculus to complex function theory.

Adam Stinchcombe, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Adirondack Community College, has been developing small additional activities to supplement textbook learning for his classes for the past three years. He will work closely with the professors from the four-year schools to set up articulation agreement for transfer students.

Carol Freeman, Chair of a newly established Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at St. John Fisher College, has served as both project director and co-director of several national and state grants for reform in mathematics teaching. She has received awards from both Nebraska’s Department of Education and NASA for her contribution to mathematics reform.

Stuart Boersma, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Alfred University, and a Project NExT Fellow, teaches courses in introductory and advanced mathematics. He has interests in designing small-group activities for mathematics courses as well as encouraging mathematics students to write about their mathematical results.

Alan McCoy, Assistant Professor of Computational Science at SUNY Brockport , is designing a program to facilitate the use of computers and related technologies as problem-solving tools in science, business, and other applications areas.

By establishing quantitative codes for each criterion, each course will be given a “standards profile,” which can be used as a dependent or an independent variable in evaluation within and across campuses. We propose that the primary measurable outcome of the project will be to increase each participant's self-efficacy (DeMoulin, 1993 and Bendura 1986) in his or her ability to integrate mathematical modeling into the existing mathematics curriculum.

Changes in the nature of partnerships will vary from college to college depending on their location and the character of the surrounding area. Progress toward this goal will be assessed through the content analysis of written materials including journals, logs, minutes of meetings, and formal agreements.

We propose the work of Glassick, Maeroff, and Huber (1997) as a basis for the construction of a short survey form to be administered as a pretest-posttest to samples of faculty members on each of the campuses involved in the project. Robert Schell , evaluator of SUNY Oswego Instutution-Wide Reform project, will be responsible for the assessment component.

SCCIMT will share its experiences both locally (NYSC of 30 colleges) and at the national level. Conferences, workshops, newsletters and the World Wide Web will be used to foster connections among faculty across the disciplines at many institutions. The NYSC has routinely hosted several conferences and workshops every year, such as the Workshop on Cooperative Learning (1995/1996), the Workshop on Linear Algebra and ODE (1997), and the Workshop on Interdisciplinary Education (1998). We anticipate receiving further SUNY support to run additional conferences related to this work. In addition, faculty will present results at national and regional meetings of professional societies, including MAA, AMS, and AMATYC. Publication of articles in professional journals such as College Mathematics Journal, Mathematics and Education Reform Newsletter, Primus and the SUNY Center for Learning and Technology (CLT News) will help to inform state and national audiences of our results. We will also maintain a Web site and produce a newsletter.

Concern 3. There seems to be little synthesis or integration of the individual
projects. What will be done to ensure that this is an integrated project,
rather than a separate series of small grants?

Response:

The schools in this consortium have a long history of collaboration. This was possible because of a firm commitment to creating and sustaining a sense of shared educational purpose and zeal for learning and teaching. For the last four summers faculty, by regularly sharing personal and intellectual effort, became energized members of their respective college communities. They proceeded to develop new courses, make presentations, write and present papers, and submit grant proposals. Consortium faculty have learned that innovations are not only about changing the course content but also about changing the faculty and their understanding of students and the teaching context. Unlike other workshops, this one pre selects key people who have the ability to make changes on their campuses. The collective efforts of these key people will produce a repertoire of instructional methods and a core group of resource faculty from which all of the participating colleges can draw. Thus we are striving to increase, enrich, and sustain a learning community that will have faculty development as an ongoing process.

The organizational structure agreed upon will consist of three levels of responsibility:

1. Local project directors on each campus will be the co-principal investigators (Co-PIs). Their responsibilities will include:

Coordination, adaptation and implementation of the campuses institutional reform projects addressing SCCIMT goals.
Coordination of bi-directional communication and dissemination between SCCIMT and individual campuses.
Communication with the creators of previously developed materials and educational practices.

The consortium has identified the strengths and weaknesses of each campus and has designated specific colleges to take the lead for achieving the goals. Below we illustrate this process by focusing on goals 1 and 2.

3. Building upon the previous UFE and CCD grants, SCCIMT is now adequately prepared to adapt and adopt materials and educational practices developed by the MATC and other MST principal investigators.

The following detailed timeline will help us achieve our shared vision

· April 1999: Electronic exchange between PIs

Share plans for campus efforts; identify sponsored participants; establish a structure for inter-campus communications; plan for May 1999 meeting of PIs and sponsored participants of all campuses

· May 1999: Meeting of the PIs and the first year sponsored participants

· October 1999: Meeting of the PIs

Sharing of progress reports and identifying the second-year sponsored participants; planning for an April 2000 meeting of all participants

· April 2000: First combined meeting of the PIs and sponsored participants

Presentations of work; roundtable discussion

· Summer 2000 Inquiry-Based Learning Conference at St. John Fisher College

· August 2000 Meeting of PIs

Evaluation of year one and first combined meeting; planning for year two; sharing of experiences of campus efforts

· October 2000:

Planning for second combined meeting; sharing progress reports

· April 2001: Second combined meeting

In addition to the above we will have a meeting each semester in which the Co-PI's (and possibly others as well) report on what is being done on their home campus. Each campus will make a presentation on another host campus at least once a year. We expect that such visits will grow naturally out of the consortium activities. Indeed we anticipate that faculty will be working on inter-institutional projects, even ones involving inter-institutional student projects that will necessitate frequent visits among the campuses.

Courses and modules will be posted on the Consortium Web page for all to read and implement. This will serve as an electronic newsletter. We will require each campus to engage in at least one interaction with another campus each year (for example, Constant Goutziers from SUNY Oneonta recently visited SUNY Farmingdale and gave a very nice presentation).

We firmly believe that by following the program outlined in this proposal we will build sound and constructive programs whose effects lasts longer, achieve greater resonance in the campus culture and transform the faculty.

Bibliography

[6] Project INTERMATH, U. S. Military Academy in West Point

[7] Mathematics Throughout the Curriculum, Indiana University

[20] Arney, D. (ed), 1997: Interdisciplinary Lively Application Projects (ILAPS), The Mathematical Association of America, Washington D.C.

Concern 4 There is little evaluation planned to see the impact of this project. A
more substantive plan must be developed.

Program Evaluation

The goals of this project are 1,2.3,and 5. For the purpose of this evaluation we have added another item which we have listed below as goal 4.

Course & Curriculum Improvement -- Strengthen existing Mathematics, Science and Technology (MST) programs and develop new, interdisciplinary courses using the criteria for excellence defined by the state and national mathematics and science education reform standards.

One of the first steps in organizing the project will be to establish a subcommittee of participants to review the most recent criteria for excellence defined by the state and national science and math education reform standards and use them as a part of the criteria for selecting supportable courses. By establishing quantitative codes for each criterion, each course will be given a “standards profile,” which can be used as a dependent or an independent variable in evaluation within and across campuses.

Faculty Development -- Provide sustained opportunities for faculty development in the area of Inquiry-Based Teaching, which is effective for promoting learning through conceptual understanding, problem solving, and critical thinking in MST courses.

We propose that the primary measurable outcome of the project will be to increase each participant’s self-efficacy in their ability to integrate the MST into the existing elements of the college curriculum. The self-efficacy concept is based on the belief that individuals can have success in the performance of a behavior to reach a given outcome. Individuals with a strong sense of self-efficacy establish a positive attitude toward themselves and toward their responsibilities (DeMoulin, 1993).

The concept of self-efficacy was first articulated by Bendura (1986), a social-learning theorist, who believed that more than self-deference preceded performance. He suggested that most people learn behaviors by observing others and then modeling the behaviors that they perceive to be effective.