Robert R. Bruner - US grants

This project is an equipment grant under the activity Grants For Scientific Computing Research Equipment For The Mathematical Sciences program. The project involves the purchase of special purpose equipment dedicated to the support of research in the mathematical sciences. In general, this equipment is required jointly by several research projects and would be difficult to justify on one project alone. This research equipment support from the National Science Foundation is coupled with discounts and contributions of equipment from manufacturers and significant cost-sharing from the submitting institution. This project provides a good example of university, industrial, and government cooperation in the support of basic research in the mathematical sciences. The equipment in this project will be used for several research activities, including in particular: Research in non- commutative algebra, research in homological algebra, research in stochastic differential equations, research in groups and designs, and research in homotopy theory.

The Department of Mathematics at Wayne State University will purchase one UNIX server and four UNIX workstations which will be dedicated to the support of research in the mathematical sciences. The equipment will be used for several research projects, including in particular: Cohomology of Modules over the Steenrod Algebra; Estimation, Control, and Optimization of Large-scale and Hybrid Systems; Computation of Differential Equations with Strongly Discontinuous Coefficients; and Numerical Approximation of Singularly Perturbed Problems.

Seven faculty members in the department will participant in
the proposed research projects. Many graduate students will be involved in these research projects.

Wayne State University (WSU) is an urban research-intensive university whose student body reflects the diversity of the metro Detroit area. The primary goal of this project is to support the broad implementation of Evidence-Based Teaching Methods (EBTMs) across the STEM disciplines on campus, and by doing so, to support student persistence within STEM majors, improve the 6-year graduation rate of STEM undergraduates, and enable graduates to be more effective in the 21st century workplace.

Phase 1 of the project involves a critical self-assessment of current teaching practices on campus including STEM faculty attitudes toward and knowledge of EBTMs. Comparisons of self-reported usage of EBTMs to classroom video observations scored using objective measures of classroom activity take place during this phase. In phase 2, the development and implementation of a series of professional development activities aim at broadening the awareness of EBTMs and assisting faculty with their adoption. Additional survey work will assess the impact of the interventions on attitudes and observational work on classroom pedagogy usage. Phase 3 involves the development of an institutional plan for the broad implementation across the 26 foundational courses identified in 4 primary disciplines (Biology, Chemistry, Math and Physics) with an enrollment of approximately 7000 students per semester. Concurrently during the 3-phase plan, metrics for longitudinal tracking of students through the STEM curricula will be developed to: a) understand better how students interface with the degree programs; b) identify critical points within our majors where specific interventions can be developed to improve student outcomes; and c) determine if appropriate developmental curricula are in place and whether the appropriate guidance is provided to students in a timely fashion to maximize student success.

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, this Wayne State University (WSU) Noyce Scholarship Track I project will address the national need to produce a high quality teaching workforce in elementary and middle school mathematics. The "Noyce Mathematics Fellows, TeachDETROIT" project will prepare elementary and middle school mathematics teachers for Detroit schools at a time that United States students lag behind their international peers in mathematics achievement. This is a critical challenge, since proficiency in mathematics is essential for entry to college, access to employment, economic well-being, and participation in a democratic society. This challenge is particularly important in the city of Detroit, where student scores in mathematics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2009, 2011 and 2013 were among the lowest in the country. The project will address this challenge by preparing elementary and middle school mathematics teachers to work in Detroit schools. Wayne State University, Henry Ford College, the Detroit Public Schools, and Wayne Westland Community Schools will partner to recruit, train, and induct fifty-six (56) new elementary and middle school mathematics teachers for Detroit schools.

Preparing successful teachers of mathematics is a non-trivial endeavor, especially since teacher candidates need to be proficient in mathematics. This can be particularly challenging because, for many teachers, the mathematical subject matter is significantly different from the mathematics they learned as students. Beyond subject matter knowledge, teachers must also have pedagogical expertise for helping others to learn and understand mathematical concepts. In addition, teachers must also: (1) have the interpersonal skills and dispositions to work with students like and unlike themselves; (2) be able to design and carry out sophisticated assessments of student progress; (3) analyze data; and (4) adjust instruction accordingly. To meet these demands, teachers need substantial training over time. This project will create a model to prepare new teachers to be successful, especially in high-poverty schools with children of color, and this model will constitute an important and timely contribution to educational research. The project will provide scholarships and stipends to highly qualified candidates to support their participation in an innovative urban teacher residency program for the 15 months they are receiving preservice training. This program will blend coursework and field experiences, with the participation of outstanding mentors, in elementary and middle school classrooms. Because new teacher attrition rates are high, a crucial piece of the "Noyce Mathematics Fellows, TeachDETROIT" program includes continued mentoring for graduates during their first two years as teachers of record. The Noyce Mathematics Fellows will utilize social media and other forms of technology to keep graduates connected in ongoing conversations about best practices in mathematics instruction.

This is an institutional transformation project. It continues work initiated under a planning grant from an earlier NSF program. The project supports a commitment by this university to increasing substantially the use of evidence-based teaching for foundational STEM courses. With this project, the core STEM Departments and the University's administration plan to fully utilize evidence-based teaching methods in lower division courses and study the impact on student achievement. The implementation of this plan allows a test of impact on a student body that is disproportionately non-traditional (50%) and comprised of many underrepresented minority students (25%). Non-traditional and minority students represent an increasing demographic nationwide and their needs must be addressed in order to meet the goal of increasing the number of STEM degree recipients. Heretofore, evidence-based teaching methods have been studied much more extensively on campuses with traditional student populations. The planning grant supported a self-assessment by STEM faculty instructors of their teaching, aided by peer-mentor-led learning communities and departmental conversations on teaching reforms. It initiated a set of pilot interventions in foundational STEM courses in core STEM departments, using professional development workshops to support faculty engagement with the initiative. A recently completed university-wide strategic planning process pinpointed the importance of adopting evidence-based teaching methods to improve student success. This team is well-positioned to move to scale in developing evidenced-based teaching approaches for its STEM courses, with priority given to the 26 foundational classes.

The program supported by this grant will allow departments to compete for course transformation grants. Successful projects will be provided resources in the form of a pedagogical post-doc and faculty professional development stipends to assist them in reformulating the class from a lecture-based curriculum to one dominated by active-engagement methods. Faculty involved in the concurrent projects will comprise a learning community to discuss issues relating to the implementation of evidence-based teaching and their reflections on student learning. Longitudinal tracking will follow students through to graduation, to assess the impact on academic and career trajectories of the students enrolled in the transformed courses. A large part of the present project pertains to data collection and assessment of project efforts. These data will be documented and shared to ensure that other institutions can learn from this institutional transformation effort. Through this program, students will experience engaged learning, and faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students will be trained in modern evidence-based teaching methods. These students and fellows will be able to bring their training and experiences to other institutions and serve to build a national pool of experienced teachers using engaging and effective teaching methods.