Teaching
The Mathematics Department is constantly revising its courses and course structure to better and more equitably serve our students. Here are some examples of recent course projects.
Math 255A/B Calculus for Life Sciences course was recently re-designed as a part of a multi-year multi-institution project between CSUN, Los Angeles Mission College, Los Angeles Valley College and Temple University funded by a $1.25M grant from CA Educational Learning Lab. Using a holistic approach, the team designed and implemented a culturally responsive contextualized calculus for life sciences curriculum that supports students’ motivation and engagement in the course. Multiple new elements were introduced in the course including flipped and hybrid instruction, contextualized active learning assignments, and interventions developed by the team’s social psychologists to support and build students’ sense of belonging, ability beliefs about math (i.e., self-efficacy), value beliefs about math (e.g., personal importance, utility for future goals, interest), and mitigate students’ perceived costs associated with engaging in their math course. A series of faculty professional development workshops were designed and conducted to train faculty on how to incorporate culturally responsive pedagogy in their courses and support student motivation.
For more information about the project please reach out to Alex Alekseenko.The team contacts and additional information can be found on the project web page (https://www.equitablecalculus.org). The re-designed curriculum including the utility value interventions can be adopted on Canvas Commons (search for Calculus for Life Sciences). Also check out the Calculus Grand Challenge cohort’s page at the Libre Text Commons (https://calearninglab.commons.libretexts.org/) for cool calculus resources. Last but not least, if you are teaching Calculus I you may want to try our Calculus based escape room games:
Return to Calculus Island: The Serum
Our team:
CSUN – Alex Alekseenko, Vlad Panferov, Josey Vargas, Scott Appelrouth and Andrew Ainsworth.
LAMC – Par Mohammadian, Bamdad Samii.
LAVC - Scarlet Sarkissian, Humberto Raya Mendoza.
Temple U – Stacy Priniski.