Teaching for PROWESS: Supporting department-level change in community college mathematics

Teaching for PROWESS (TfP) is an NSF-funded project (DUE-2013493) led by the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC). Currently, the researchers and practitioners on the TfP project team are partnering with teams of mathematics faculty and administrators from two Phase 1 community colleges (six more community colleges will be selected to participate in Phase 2). The project fosters instructional practices that support active learning and that lead to changes in departmental-level practices that nurture faculty members' work on instructional change. TfP uses the operationalization of active learning in mathematics described by Laursen & Rasmussen (2019, p. 138): active learning of mathematics is supported by both teaching methods and classroom norms that promote: "(1) students' deep engagement in mathematical reasoning; (2) peer-to-peer interaction; (3) instructors' interest in and use of student thinking; and (4) instructors' attention to equitable and inclusive practices." Using examples from our work so far, we will illustrate the TfP project's theory of change that incorporates and synthesizes change theories that have informed other projects focused on instructional change. In addition to leveraging the principles of active learning in mathematics that ground a similar initiative focused on university mathematics departments (SEMINAL, NSF DUE-1624610), we use practices for developing departmental leaders of instructional change developed by members of the PULSE Community (see NSF DUE-1355771), and approach instructional change using the model of design-based implementation research developed within the MIST (see NSF ESI-0554535) project. What distinguishes TfP from other postsecondary change initiatives is the project's focus on the unique context of community colleges and the leading role that the professional organization of community college mathematics faculty, AMATYC, plays in recruiting participating colleges and supporting an emergent network of mathematics departments engaged in the work of instructional change towards active learning in mathematics.