Program Assessment Conference for Mathematics: Creating Tools for Math Departments to Self-Assess Professional Development Programs for their Graduate Student Instructors

University Of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville TN

Investigators

Abstract

This project serves the national interest by developing tools that will allow college mathematics departments to better prepare graduate student instructors for their duties in the classroom. Graduate students play a critical role in early undergraduate mathematics, serving as teaching assistants and lead instructors for a substantive proportion of first- and second-year courses at many institutions. Recognizing that most beginning graduate students do not have prior experience as educators, many departments now provide Professional Development for Teaching (PDT) for graduate student instructors in mathematics. The specifics of PDT programs can vary across institutions, and is often tailored to local factors including the students being served in early courses. To sustain and improve these programs, however, departments and administrators must be able to assess their effectiveness and engage in continuous improvement efforts. The Program Assessment Conference for Mathematics will foster a partnership among those who implement, those who oversee, and those who evaluate the professional development of mathematics graduate students. This project will work toward the creation of a flexible assessment tool. Sustainable programs are ones who understand and can share their stories of impact and improvement, and the project-created protocol will empower mathematics departments to self-assess their professional development programs for graduate students. A high-quality tool will not only improve undergraduate education, but will also propagate improvement to other campuses because many graduate students are future faculty. In order to develop and refine the protocol, the workshop will take part in two phases. Drawing from a participants' expertise, the design phase of the workshop, which will be in-person, will elicit significant insights that lead to the creation of the protocol. Then, the (primarily virtual) testing and improvement phase will pilot the PAC-Math protocol in six higher education settings, improve the protocol based on feedback, and disseminate it to the mathematics community. Approximately half of the testing and improvement phase participants will be selected from the experts involved in the design phase. The remaining testing and implementation participants will not have been involved in the design of the protocol in order to build on new perspectives and ideas for improvement. Once the protocol has been piloted and revised, it will be disseminated widely to the mathematics community and will be potentially scalable to other disciplines and contexts in the future. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.