Teaching for Prowess (TfP):
Increasing Student Success in
Community College Mathematics
through Active Learning and
Systemic Instructional Change

Project Abstract

This project aims to serve the national need for community colleges to play a significant role in supporting students’ pathways to college-level mathematics courses. Teaching mathematics in the 21st century brings new opportunities and challenges to creating this pathway for the mathematics community, especially in the first two years of college. Instructional standards from the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) seek to improve mathematics education in the first two years of college by presenting clear guidance on how to impact the mathematical prowess of students while also improving student success. These standards, IMPACT: Improving Mathematical Prowess And College Teaching, intend to transform mathematical instructional practices that promote students’ deep engagement in mathematical thinking, instructors’ interest in and use of student thinking, student-to-student interaction, and instructors’ attention to equitable and inclusive practices. This project will bring together IMPACT teams, consisting of faculty, administrators, and support services, from 8 community colleges to work towards a common vision of successfully transforming departments and departmental culture for implementing active learning in college level mathematics. This collaborative effort has potential to lead to understanding the effects of sustained faculty development and participation in a researcher-practitioner partnership on student success rates and retention in community college mathematics. Additionally, the project has potential to contribute to knowledge on how active learning improves students’ engagement, knowledge, and ability.

This collaborative project involves partnerships with AMATYC (lead), Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Clackamas Community College, and Oregon State University. The five-year project aims to increase student success rates in gateway and prerequisite mathematics courses through focusing on three key components: (1) development of content and pedagogical knowledge, (2) building of community engagement through AMATYC’s community portal, and (3) investigating the effects of project interventions on student success. These components will contribute to the project’s focus on students and instruction, departments and institutions, and knowledge generation specifically within the context of community college mathematics. Research findings will lead to a framework for systemic transformation of community college mathematics departments. Research activities will be guided by design-based implementation research and will facilitate researcher-practitioner partnerships that support faculty in developing a research perspective to inform their teaching. The project aims to understand the following research objectives: (1) how instructors’ enactment of active learning supports student learning, (2) how IMPACT team’s participation in researcher-practitioner partnerships and in communities of transformation lead to department-level change to support student success, and (3) how a professional organization plays a role in convening a community of transformation of mathematics departments and propagating a model of this transformation. A retrospective analysis of data across the project’s participating colleges will result in a contextualized theory of change framework for community college mathematics departments. The NSF IUSE: EHR program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.

AMATYC NSF #2013493

Maricopa – Chandler-Gilbert NSF #2013232

Clackamas NSF #2012962

Project Dates
July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2025