What is OPEN Math?

The OPEN Math or Online Professional Enhancement and Capacity Building for Instructional Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics project is improving math instruction throughout the country by providing high-quality online professional development workshops around themes of active learning tailored to higher education math faculty through a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to understand effective practices in delivering online teaching and learning-focused professional development.  

Read the full project abstract for the MAA here, and for CU-B here. 

Why Professional Development?

Using the metaphor of a lever (a simple machine used to move an object at one location by applying a smaller force somewhere else), we believe that supporting and nourishing the community of leaders/providers/facilitators of teaching-focused professional development can have large effects downstream in our classroom teaching and even upstream in the change-culture of our departments and institutions.

Teaching-focused professional development can...

• help instructors improve skills in research-based teaching by providing resources and models, facilitating changes in knowledge and beliefs, and welcoming them into a  community of common practice;
• build leadership capacity to strengthen research-based teaching in coordinated math courses, across programs, and within the larger mathematics community; and
• strengthen learning, encourage persistence, and broaden the participation of students in the downstream classes.

Why Online?

• We can use and strengthen the new skills we have developed (since 2020) in teaching & leading groups online.
• We can make professional development more affordable, more accessible, and more equitable.
• We can reduce the environmental footprint of running professional development and disseminating research on teaching and learning.

Attend a Professional Development Workshop

Join us during the summer for one of our signature online professional development workshops centered around research-based instructional strategies.

Develop a Professional Development Workshop

Share your expertise and engage with peer mathematics faculty across the country by developing a teaching and learning-focused professional development workshop.

Minority Serving Institutions Leadership Summit

Join us for a series of engaging online conversations for leaders in mathematics departments at Minority Serving Institutions, centered around expert insights on mathematics curriculum and pedagogy, collaborative brainstorming, and connection with a network of peers.

Learn More About the Evaluation

With an evaluation led by the University of Colorado-Boulder, we're gaining deeper insights into effective ways to deliver online, teaching-focused professional development. Learn more about what the evaluation process means for workshop facilitators and participants.

Past Workshops & Activities

Explore our past workshops and activities since the program launched in Summer 2022.

Project Team

• Doug Ensley (densley@maa.org), Shippensburg University (Pennsylvania)
• Stan Yoshinobu (stan@math.toronto.edu), University of Toronto
• Sandra Laursen (sandra.laursen@colorado.edu), University of Colorado Boulder
• Tim Archie (tim.archie@colorado.edu), University of Colorado Boulder
• Audrey Malagon (amalagon@maa.org), MAA Senior Director of Programs