Abstract
Roosevelt University is a private, comprehensive master’s institution with a social justice mission. Faculty are expected to cultivate excellent teaching, create significant amounts of research, and perform much service work. It is challenging to find time for all three when they are approached as distinct tasks. The mathematics department has developed creative activities that integrate all of these professional responsibilities resulting in a significant change in departmental culture. Faculty have added large- and small-scale projects to courses. They are now working with more students on undergraduate research and have created a venue, the Math x-Position, to showcase student work. This was all accomplished by ongoing faculty mentoring, combining teaching and research, and by fostering a safe environment for innovation.
MSC Codes
97A99
97B99
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Notes
- 1.
PIC Math is “a Mathematical Association of America and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics program with support provided by the National Science Foundation (DMS-1345499). It aims to prepare mathematical sciences students for industrial careers by engaging them in research problems that come directly from industry. A strong component of PIC Math involves students working as a group on a semester-long undergraduate research problem from business, industry, or government” (PIC Math n.d.).
- 2.
SENCER is the signature program of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement (NCSCE). “SENCER applies the science of learning to the learning of science, all to expand civic capacity. SENCER courses and programs connect science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content to critical local, national, and global challenges” (SENCER n.d.). NCSCE is a “national organization that supports a community of teachers and learners. Through grant funding, we help educators in and outside the classroom make connections between the content they teach and real world issues of civic importance” (NCSCE n.d.).
- 3.
“Funded through the National Science Foundation’s TUES-II program (DUE-1322883), the Engaging Mathematics 3-year initiative aims to significantly increase the use of the SENCER model, and other reformative pedagogies, by a national community of mathematics scholars capable of creating, implementing, and sustaining reforms in mathematics education. Engaging Mathematics is an initiative of the NCSCE” (Engaging Mathematics n.d.).
- 4.
“Flipping the classroom is a pedagogical strategy that replaces the standard lecture-in-class format with opportunities for students to review, discuss, and investigate course content with the instructor in class. There are many ways in which a classroom can be flipped, but the underlying premise is that students review lecture materials outside of class and then come to class prepared to participate in instructor-guided learning activities” (Hughes 2014, p. 137).
- 5.
SoTL is the intellectual work that faculty members do when they use their disciplinary knowledge (in our case, mathematics) to investigate a question about their students’ learning (and their teaching), submit their findings to peer review , and make them public for others to build upon (Dewar and Bennett 2015).
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Cohen, S., González-Arévalo, B., Pivarski, M. (2016). A Departmental Change: Professional Development Through Curricular Innovation. In: Dewar, J., Hsu, Ps., Pollatsek, H. (eds) Mathematics Education. Association for Women in Mathematics Series, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44950-0_15
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