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For more information about the New Mathways Project, contact us at mathways@austin.utexas.edu
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News
New Mathways Project partnership generates a buzz
Now available! Webinar: Introduction of the New Mathways Project
New national commission to help reshape the future of community colleges
Resources
Higher Ed Issue Brief, Number 2, Aligning the Co-Requisite Model (pdf 8.1mb)
Higher Ed Issue Brief, Number 1, Clarifying the Co-Requisite Model (pdf 8.4mb)
Jenna Cullinane and Uri Treisman, 2010, Improving Developmental Mathematics Education in Community Colleges (pdf 434kb)
Dana Center Terminology for College Mathematics Reform (pdf 90kb)
Unlocking the Gate (pdf 744kb)—a developmental education literature review from MDRC
Origins of the Statway™ and Quantway™ Courses
The Dana Center's New Mathways Project builds off our work in 2010–2011 with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The original versions of the Statway™ and Quantway™ courses were created by The Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin under sponsorship of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and are copyright © 2011 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin. STATWAY™ / Statway™ and Quantway™ are trademarks of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The Joyful Conspiracy
Since its inception, the Dana Center has worked to engage campus leaders, mathematics faculty, professional associations, state policymakers, and national research and advocacy organizations in rethinking and reshaping developmental and freshman-level mathematics to better serve students entering college.
We know this ambitious goal requires coordinated action at all levels of the system, a strategy of wide-ranging engagement that Dana Center director Uri Treisman calls the "joyful conspiracy."
The Dana Center's New Mathways Project is designed to help community colleges fulfill what they see as their most important mission: providing a reliable path to upward mobility for all who seek to improve their lives through education.
We invite you to join our joyful conspiracy. Write us at mathways@austin.utexas.edu to join our update list.
Not a crisis in the making; a crisis already made . . .
The research is clear. Developmental mathematics has failed to promote student success and degree completion. Two-thirds of community college students referred to a developmental mathematics sequence do not complete it, and only 20% complete a "gateway" college credit-bearing course.*
*Bailey, T., Jeong, D. W., and Cho, S. (2010). Referral, enrollment, and completion in developmental education sequences in community college. Economics of Education Review, 29(2), 255–270.
The Dana Center response . . .
Our New Mathways Project is designed as a coherent response to this national crisis. The Dana Center's strategy constitutes a systemic approach to improving student success and completion through implementation of processes, strategies, and structures built around three accelerated mathematics pathways and a supporting student success course.
This comprehensive initiative enables college students placed into developmental mathematics to complete a credit-bearing, transferable mathematics course in one academic year or less, while simultaneously building skills for long-term success in college and in life.
The New Mathways Project builds on the Dana Center's work developing the Statway™ and Quantway™ courses. [See the Origins of the Statway™ and Quantway™ courses.] The project lays out three pathways consisting of courses that support—not limit—students' career goals and aspirations. Each mathematics pathway includes transferrable, rigorous, college-level content that meets the requirements of specific academic programs and careers. The pathways are structured to enable students to earn college credit on an accelerated time line either through a yearlong model or a corequisite model.
The Dana Center Statistics Pathway teaches statistics along with the requisite arithmetic and algebra so that students interested in the humanities or social sciences can engage immediately in mathematics that is relevant to their education and career goals.
The Dana Center Quantitative Literacy Pathway serves students focused on developing quantitative literacy skills through a transferable, credit-bearing general education mathematics course that will be meaningful for their professional, civic, and personal lives.
The Dana Center STEM Pathway leads to Calculus I and enables students in STEM-related majors to take a transferable, credit-bearing course that fulfills their developmental and first college-credit mathematics requirements. We will announce the development time line in 2012.
The Dana Center Student Success Course is a semester-long course correlated to the other Mathways courses. The Student Success course teaches concepts from the learning sciences to help developmental math students acquire strategies—and the tenacity—to succeed in math. We will announce the development time line in 2012.
The New Mathways Project Implementation Guide (pdf 933kb). We are making our initial version of an implementation guide available for institutions interested in the New Mathways Project. This guide helps institutions think through the implementation process. We will continue to develop tools and services to support implementation.