By Jana Talley
For this installment of DUE Point, I sat down with Dr. Gregory Foley of Ohio University to hear about the QuantNetOhio project that unifies Ohio quantitative reasoning (QR) instructors with the intent to enhance teaching and learning experiences at the postsecondary level. Dr. Foley shared how he and Dr. Lee Wayland from Columbus State Community College developed this network in 2022. QuantNetOhio provides professional development to QR instructors and cultivates local learning communities across the state to ensure that the quantitative reasoning courses offered statewide are effectively implemented.
What inspired you and your team to create QuantNetOhio?
Ohio is unique in that all of its 35 colleges and universities offer a quantitative reasoning course in the mathematics pathway for first year non-STEM students. All of these courses have common learning outcomes that focus on student thinking, communication, and connections to the real world. So we initially sought funding to develop a curriculum that instructors could easily implement. However, our discussions with NSF program officers gave us a better perspective on the need to provide a professional development network for QR instructors in Ohio. Not only was QR new to many full-time, tenure-track professors, but also we learned that over 66% of the QR teachers were VITAL (Visiting, Instructors, Temporary, Adjuncts, and Lecturers) faculty who often lack access to professional development opportunities. This shifted our focus and led to the current QuantNetOhio model which includes (i) local professional learning communities (PLCs), (ii) a three-day summer institute for PLC leaders, (iii) a one-day professional development workshop for all Ohio QR instructors, and (iv) virtual webinars throughout the academic year.
Tell us about the QuantNetOhio team that supports project activities and research.
Outside of myself and Lee Wayland who serve as PIs, our team is composed of a professional development instructor, four collaborating investigators, a post-doc fellow, three graduate research assistants, and a graduate student. As the project evolved, our team grew in terms of their roles as well as locations across the country. While some of our team members are teaching and coordinating QR courses, others are focused on conducting studies that add to the body of research which informs our community of best practices. These studies have led to a variety of publications, including journal articles and dissertations.
How does QuantNetOhio stand out from other professional development projects?
The most distinctive aspect of the project is the creation of PLCs that we call QUILTs: QUantitative reasoning Instructional Learning Teams. During the summer workshop we prepare each institution to formalize these ongoing support groups of QR instructors that meet two to four times per month. QUILT members exchange ideas and resources specific to their local campuses throughout the academic year. Once a QUILT is established at an institution or among nearby campuses, they are maintained by local leaders and are ultimately positioned to be sustained beyond NSF funding.
Describe the structure of your network activities.
In addition to the summer three-day QUILT leader institute, we facilitate a one-day QR instructor workshop. Throughout these summer activities, instructors experience course projects to better understand the type of critical thinking and communication skills that students need to engage in QR. Participants also learn to recognize and design cognitively demanding tasks that prompt student engagement, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. They even present and critique project ideas for implementation in their own QR courses. We then follow up during the academic year with six webinars that allow us to specifically address the issues that instructors are facing while teaching the course. The webinars vary in style from open forums for discussing classroom challenges to mini conferences for presenting instructional tools and strategies.
How do you plan to expand the impact of your work with QuantNetOhio to other regions of the country?
This summer we are responding to interests from outside of Ohio by inviting faculty from other states to join our institute and workshop. For example, the Arkansas affiliate of AMATYC aims to create a network among their two-year colleges. States like Connecticut and Wisconsin have already begun organizing QR professional development for their systems of community colleges. Their teams are participating in the summer QuantNetOhio sessions to learn more about how to customize their networks. Mississippi’s efforts are currently being led by a single institution, Mississippi State University, with the hope to garner more interest from faculty as QR pathways are beginning to emerge across the state’s higher education campuses. We recognize that each region has specific needs and challenges that require adjustments to our model to be effective. Our goal is to lean on the insights that we have gathered over the past two years to best inform new networks aiming to enrich the quantitative reasoning experiences of teachers and students across the country.
Author’s Note:
If you would like to know more about this NSF Project, Developing a Statewide Professional Development Network for Effective Teaching of Undergraduate Quantitative Reasoning Course (#2216197), contact the PI, Dr. Gregory Foley, at foleyg@ohio.edu.
Jana Talley is a Co-Editor of DUE Point and an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistical Sciences at Jackson State University.