PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Supporting instructional change in mathematics: The role of online and in-person communities
Page: 646
While studies continually show benefits of active learning strategies like inquiry-based learning (IBL), it is difficult to get faculty to adopt these methods. Particularly challenging is the third and final stage in Paulsen and Feldman’s (1995) model, ‘refreezing,’ when instructors use feedback and support to decide whether to continue with the instructional changes they have made or return to their previous methods. In this paper, we show how a workshop to teach college mathematics instructors to implement IBL used both online and in-person communities to help provide the ongoing feedback and support necessary for ‘refreezing.’ We offer lessons for how to increase the relevance of and participation in online support communities. We also use an innovative analytical approach, Social Network Analysis, to understand the ongoing processes of how e-mail exchanges provide feedback and both intellectual and emotional support to workshop participants.