Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2020-2021 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Core [UG]
Program Name: Mathematics Core (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
The department’s procedure is to collect evidence in two ways, direct and indirect.
(1) The Undergraduate Committee will periodically review final exams in specifically identified courses and rate carefully chosen problems with regard to the learning goals.
(2) The Undergraduate Committee will review student evaluations for those identified courses. If possible, instructors will be asked to add extra questions, designed by the Committee, to directly address the learning goals.
Review Process:
The department’s Undergraduate Committee, chaired by the Assistant Chair for Undergraduates, is charged with assessment. The committee reviews the data described in item 3 during the fall semester, with the goal of recommendations to the full department in the spring.
Resulting Program Changes:
In this unusual academic year, the department began or continued three distinct initiatives.
(i.) Our ongoing Teaching Seminar series, coordinated by Professors Belding and Goldstein, focussed on approaches to online/hybrid teaching and student assessment. Topics included: integrating antiracist teaching techniques in our courses; workshopping teaching techniques; advising: what do you say? talking about advising; panel discussion with recent Ph.Ds; pros and pons of various online homework platforms.The seminar’s updated website is: https://sites.google.com/bc.edu/mathteachingseminar/spring-2021.
(ii.) As follow up, the department will conduct a summer workshop on inclusive teaching, with both graduate students and faculty participating.
(iii.) Revision and assessment of our largest core courses, MATH1100/1 Calculus I/II, continued (see the 2020 E-1-A). All sections of both 1100 and 1101 became coordinated, using the same pilot curriculum. A new textbook was chosen for the multivariable material. In the summer of 2021, Professors Belding and Goldstein will review course evaluations, grades, and course survey data, and also solicit instructor feedback as they ne tune the curriculum for the future. They will also be conducting a formal investigation of multiple years of survey data related to single variable calculus students’ beliefs about calculus and mathematics, reflecting on how the coordination and curriculum changes are meeting students’ needs and the Core outcomes.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
In this unusual academic year, the department began or continued three distinct initiatives.
(i.) Our ongoing Teaching Seminar series, coordinated by Professors Belding and Goldstein, focussed on approaches to online/hybrid teaching and student assessment. Topics included: integrating antiracist teaching techniques in our courses; workshopping teaching techniques; advising: what do you say? talking about advising; panel discussion with recent Ph.Ds; pros and pons of various online homework platforms.The seminar’s updated website is: https://sites.google.com/bc.edu/mathteachingseminar/spring-2021.
(ii.) As follow up, the department will conduct a summer workshop on inclusive teaching, with both graduate students and faculty participating.
(iii.) Revision and assessment of our largest core courses, MATH1100/1 Calculus I/II, continued (see the 2020 E-1-A). All sections of both 1100 and 1101 became coordinated, using the same pilot curriculum. A new textbook was chosen for the multivariable material. In the summer of 2021, Professors Belding and Goldstein will review course evaluations, grades, and course survey data, and also solicit instructor feedback as they ne tune the curriculum for the future. They will also be conducting a formal investigation of multiple years of survey data related to single variable calculus students’ beliefs about calculus and mathematics, reflecting on how the coordination and curriculum changes are meeting students’ needs and the Core outcomes.
Attachments (if available)