PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2014
Denver, Colorado
Investigating Instructors’ Concerns about Assessments in Inquiry-Based Learning Methods Courses
Page: 763
We present initial findings of ongoing research that investigates the nature of instructors’ concerns as they design and use assessments for their students using inquiry-based learning (IBL) approaches. Using data collected from biweekly online-teaching logs written by 39 instructors, we categorized concerns into three major themes: Item Design/Assessment, Course/Resources, and Student difficulty. We compare two areas of concerns (designing assessment and using quizzes, tests, and exams) according to the type of concern and the instructor’s experience with IBL, course level, and year by using the frequencies of each category cited for each log. Our work will contribute to IBL research by analyzing instructors’ challenges as a preliminary study to enhancing IBL teaching and learning in college mathematics education.