Schedule, Notes/Handouts & Videos

Transforming mathematics courses, programs and departments so all students have equitable, effective learning opportunities aligned with their aspirations is a big challenge. Step one in making progress on this challenge is understanding the nature of the changes that are needed. In this session, we will analyze what makes our challenge especially challenging. Then we will consider some leadership practices that are especially well-suited to supporting change in complex situations.

During this session participants will have opportunities to continue the discussion from the previous session. Talking in smaller groups, participants will further explore the nature of the challenge we are working on and generate examples of leadership practices that can be used productively to support change.

In this presentation I argue that course coordinators can function as a choice architect that can nudge instructors to, among other things, increase their uptake of research based instructional strategies. Choice architects are those that make others’ lives easier by organizing the context in which others make decisions, rather than making the choice for them. I also highlight two different orientations (resource-managerial and humanistic-growth) that course coordinators tend to take to their work. I argue that a resource-managerial orientation is necessary but not sufficient to promote innovation and change.