Centering Instructional Innovation in Undergraduate Mathematics Through Values-Centered Collaboration

While extensive research has focused on creating research-based pedagogical innovations and disseminating them to university instructors (e.g., Larsen & Lockwood, 2013; Leron & Dubinsky, 1995), research has also shown limited uptake of such materials (e.g., Dawkins & Weber, 2023; Johnson et al., 2018). Reasons suggested for this limited uptake include a lack of alignment between researchers' and instructors' instructional priorities or because instructors have additional priorities beyond the ones accounted for in the innovation. Thus, in alignment with calls for new approaches to instructional change (Dawkins & Weber, 2023), our project tests a collaboration between mathematics education researchers and instructors focused on leveraging instructors' beliefs and the broader values of the mathematical community in guiding changes to instruction. In our collaboration, we focused on ways the mathematical community views definitions and what instructors want students to know about definitions. This project integrates focus groups, class observations, surveys, and interviews with instructors and students. The goals are to develop a toolkit of instructional innovations for upper- and lower-division mathematics courses and to ascertain barriers to and supports for instructional change.

In our presentation, we summarize our overall approach to collaborative change. We will also share data from two cohorts of focus groups, initial activities integrated by instructors as part of the project, and survey data on their experiences in the focus groups. Some barriers to instructional change highlighted by instructors included limited time to spend on new activities in their intended lessons, limited freedom to change pacing or how they approach the content in coordinated courses, and difficulties balancing multiple learning goals. However, instructors also noted positive changes from prior semesters regarding student engagement and understanding.