PROCEEDINGS OF THE 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2020
Boston, Massachusetts
Promoting instructor growth and providing resources: Course coordinator orientations toward their work
Page: 390
One of the ways in which university math departments across the country are making efforts to improve their introductory math courses is by implementing or increasing the level of course coordination for their Precalculus to Calculus 2 sequence. This not only entails creating uniform course elements across different sections but also includes efforts to build a community among the instructors of the course. While many coordinators have the common goal of improving student success, we explore what guides their actions to see this accomplished, what we refer to as their orientation toward coordination. The orientation of a coordinator encompasses their beliefs, values and knowledge of mathematics and teaching. In this proposal we introduce and elaborate on two orientations toward coordination that arose from interviews with course coordinators from a variety of institutions across the country. We also discuss the importance of both orientations as they relate to drivers of change.