Building Lasting Change in Introductory Mathematics: A Guidebook for Teaching-Focused Faculty

At many research universities, introductory mathematics remains one of the most consequential and challenging parts of the curriculum. Gateway math courses enroll large numbers of students and play an outsized role in shaping student momentum and persistence in their degree program. In recent years, responsibility for running these courses has increasingly shifted to teaching-focused faculty who oversee high-enrollment sections and day-to-day instruction. That shift presents a new opportunity to spread research-based innovations to redesign and improve introductory mathematics at a program level.

A new guidebook from Project EMBER, an initiative of Transforming Postsecondary Education in Mathematics (TPSE Math), Every Learner Everywhere, and the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities, seeks to empower teaching-focused faculty and their departments to collaborate for greater student success by addressing this challenge with a structured process and shared tools for planning change at the program level. Eliminating Mathematics Barriers Through Evidence-Based Reforms: A Guidebook details processes for forming cross-functional teams, examining current practices, and developing action plans for change in introductory mathematics programs aligned with institutional priorities. A key feature of the guidebook is a self-assessment designed to help teams examine a department’s current practices, identify strengths and concerns, and ground discussions in evidence.

Supporting teaching-focused faculty with structure

Dave Kung, Executive Director of TPSE Math, frames the guidebook as a response to a shift in who carries responsibility for introductory mathematics. At many research institutions, he says, the work of coordinating and sustaining high-enrollment general education math courses has moved away from research faculty and onto teaching-focused faculty, often without a corresponding shift in institutional support.

“It’s no longer the research faculty who are running intro math,” Kung says. “They’ve turned the enterprise over to teaching-focused faculty. But those faculty need support. They’re doing incredible work, but they’re generally overworked, underpaid, and trying to keep the trains running at their institutions.”

The purpose of the guidebook is not to assign responsibility for the conditions but to support those in a position to improve introductory mathematics. “I try to keep an assets-based perspective for people in the systems, and then save the deficit perspective for the systems themselves,” Kung says.

“One way to frame this would be to blame research faculty who have been in charge of research departments. But they’re in a system where they weren’t hired for their teaching. That’s not what gets them promotions. We want to help the people in the system who are incentivized to improve intro math to actually have the tools to do that.”

The guidebook takes that stance by focusing on structure. It recommends research, roles, and planning steps to help departments step back from day-to-day instruction and examine the broader design of their introductory mathematics programs before deciding what changes to pursue.

Related reading — Activating Teaching-Focused Faculty for Systemic Change in Gateway Math Courses

Clarifying direction through visioning

Eliminating Mathematics Barriers Through Evidence-Based Reforms: A Guidebook treats visioning as a distinct early step in the change process that helps teams clarify what they want introductory mathematics to achieve before moving into detailed planning. The visioning section of the guidebook gives departments a facilitated process for articulating shared goals grounded in institutional context and student needs. The process encourages teams to surface assumptions, develop a common understanding of success, and revisit those goals as they learn more about their current practices through the self-assessment.

Mary Pilgrim, Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at San Diego State University and one of the co-authors of the guidebook, says the visioning section draws directly from prior project work and research on department-level change, including in the Teaching for Prowess and Department Action Team projects. Those experiences, she explains, informed how the guidebook approaches helping teams articulate direction before committing to specific reforms.

Pilgrim connects the visioning process to design principles like backward design that faculty might be familiar with. “It’s thinking about where you want to go versus just starting to go there,” she says. Rather than assuming departments share a common understanding of goals, the guidebook builds in time and structure for teams to develop that understanding together.

Pilgrim also emphasizes that the guidebook treats visioning as iterative rather than fixed. Initial goals may shift once teams begin examining their current practices closely and as the self-assessment reveals more about their local context.

Building change that lasts

Pilgrim stresses that one reason the guidebook emphasizes building teams is that lasting improvement in introductory mathematics cannot rest on the individual efforts of teaching-focused faculty. “We know from research that if you just tell one individual they can do whatever they want, it’s great if they bring in active learning, but it’s not going to be lasting and sustained,” she says. “We need to take a step above that and approach things as a system if we really want to enact significant change.”

Kung also points out that many needed changes are complex and beyond the scope of just the math department. Getting students into the right introductory math class and providing the necessary support, he says “involves the registrar, it involves IT, it involves rethinking teaching loads, and it requires coordination with all the programs that require math courses. So there’s a lot of institution-wide buy-in you need.”

Seen in that light, the significant space the guidebook devotes to shared visioning, cross-functional teams, and coordinated planning is not only about building consensus. It is about using the growing corps of teaching-focused faculty to participate in creating structures that can carry change forward over time.