Theorizing Departmental Change in Early Undergraduate Math Courses: Leveraging Digital Resources to Influence Practice

We theorize how departmental change can occur in relationship to teaching and learning with digital curricular resources. We situate our efforts within mathematics departments at two- and four- year institutions, focusing on College Algebra, a gatekeeping undergraduate mathematics course. We argue that digital resources can serve as catalysts for institutional change, via layering (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010) those resources into existing systems.

Employing a layering approach to change, stakeholders work to amend systems by working from within, adding new elements to existing systems, which in turn affect the way systems work. Johnson and colleagues (in press) have offered an instantiation of layering theory, Develop-Embed-Extend-Provide (DEEP), to explain how new digital resources can be leveraged to foster change within a single department. The digital resources are called "Techtivities," interactive online activities designed to foster students' conceptions of graphs as representing relationships between quantities. The research team has developed new digital resources, worked with instructors and departments to embed those resources into existing courses, then extended opportunities and provided supports for instructors to take up those resources and continue implementation.

As a next step, we are working to extend across four Hispanic Serving Institutions of different size and scope. To guide our efforts, we appeal to Communities of Transformation (CoTs) (Kezar et al., 2018), grounded in Mezirow's (1991) theory. CoTs have three key aspects: an engaging idea which can challenge the status quo, a space to carry out new practices embodying the idea, and a group with which to connect to maintain and sustain those new practices. A key aspect of Mezirow's theory is intentionality; to engage in new practices, not only do adults become aware of their own practices, they reflect on the conditions and results of those practices. We share our progress to date and invite questions and feedback.