Collaborative Research: PreTeXt-Runestone: Open Textbooks Engaging Undergraduates in STEM

Runestone Academy Ltd, Luck WI

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving capacity in developing high-quality free, online, interactive mathematics textbooks, so that they facilitate students' learning in calculus and linear algebra. The PreTeXt-Runestone: Open Textbooks Engaging Undergraduates in STEM project advances our understanding of users' engagement with interactive features embedded in electronic textbooks by describing how such use supports teaching and learning. The project seeks answers to two interrelated questions: 1) How do groups of textbook users (students, teachers, authors, and researchers) work together to write interactive textbook questions designed to elicit multiple ways of students' thinking in classrooms? and 2) How do students and instructors use those interactive textbook questions in real classrooms? The project focuses on open-source PreTeXt textbooks hosted in the learning analytics platform, Runestone Academy. The project addresses the important need to promote student learning through continued engagement with the material they are learning and to provide tools for teachers to engage with the information gathered using those questions - not only their responses but also the various attempts to answer the questions. The goal of the project is to study the design and classroom use of three types of interactive textbook questions, Matching Exercises, Parsons Problems, and Reading Questions. The questions will be added to four widely used interactive textbooks in calculus and linear algebra. Through three design-based research cycles, the project will document the process (strategies and heuristics) through which four Student-Teacher-Author-Researcher development teams create questions that target core mathematical notions or skills tailored to each textbook and that make evident patterns of reasoning among students. Each cycle will include the development, integration, use, and evaluation of the questions in actual classrooms, with each iteration widening the scope of the project, with eight courses in the first cycle, 24 courses in the second cycle, and 40 courses in the third cycle for an estimated total of 72 instructors and at least 1200 students. WestEd will provide continued formative evaluation on all aspects of the process and will help identify processes in the development of the questions. The NSF IUSE: EDU 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.