The Power of a High-Quality Curriculum and Modern Learning Tools

The careful design of curricula and pedagogy has the power to change students’ lives. At the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin, our courses are grounded in principles that ensure learning is meaningful, student-centered, and effective. When paired with the right technology, the curricula and tools from our courses can scale to reach even more students and amplify the impact of faculty teaching.

The Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) courses provide support for faculty teaching entry-level college courses, including Introductory Statistics.

The Dana Center collaborated with Lumen Learning to build high-quality online materials that support synchronous and asynchronous learning. The Lumen One Introductory Statistics course connects the Dana Center’s high-quality instructional materials with Lumen’s innovative digital platform and instructional design. This course was built using the DCMP courses as a foundation, layering in technology-enhanced tools to promote student autonomy and success. Preliminary findings from a multi-year national study across 79 classes of Lumen One’s Introductory Statistics course showed that Lumen One improved student outcomes and helped closed gaps in student success across various student populations.

Dana Center Director of Curriculum Susan May notes that "The student data coming from this research study validates the effectiveness of integrating of high-quality content, learning sciences, and technological tools to promote student success in online learning environments."

DCMP Curriculum Design Standards

The DCMP vision for curriculum development is captured in six design standards:

• A Student-Centered Culture of Learning: A design that serves all learners, with attention to historically underserved students.
• Supporting Students in Developing as Learners: Active learning, reflection, and opportunities to build confidence.
• Communication: Opportunities for students to discuss, analyze, and think critically about mathematics and statistics and develop proficiency with terminology, language constructs, and symbols.
• Technology: Partnerships with instructors to ensure practicality and relevance to enable students to investigate complex mathematical and statistical concepts.
• Context and Interdisciplinary Connections: Content rooted in authentic, real-world applications, informed by evidence of how students learn best.
• Assessment: Materials that flex across classrooms, institutions, and delivery modes based on realistic applications with appropriate technological resources that promote persistence and support the development of a growth mindset.

High-Quality Curricula in Practice

The DCMP Introductory Statistics: Analyzing Data with Purpose course is a college-level introductory statistics course organized around broad statistical concepts and intended to serve students pursuing careers in business, allied health, nursing, and the social and behavioral sciences. This course is grounded in data, with engaging contexts that bring meaning to the work. Students are asked to learn from data and communicate with data, with a focus on the investigative process that leads to data-based conclusions.

The Dana Center developed the DCMP Data Analysis Tools to facilitate data analysis and exploration and support the development of understanding important concepts such as sampling variability. As one El Paso Community College (EPCC) student shared, “It’s made it a lot easier to input data and see everything visually. You understand where to put everything, so it helps a lot with seeing the graphs and bar graphs.”

Students at EPCC describe how this course builds not only mathematical knowledge but also persistence and self-belief. One student shared, “It makes me a lot more optimistic with how well I’ve done in this class…there is a math part of my brain after all.” Another expressed that the structure of the course helped them manage stress, stay motivated, and reflect on their progress.

Faculty see the same impact. Stephanie Andrews of Lone Star College, who taught with the DCMP curriculum both before and after its integration into Lumen One, explained that the strong foundation of the original materials allowed the platform to heighten their effectiveness. Her perspective highlights the importance of starting with intentional, high-quality design.

Lumen One: Amplifying Design With Technology

Lumen Learning has long been committed to supporting faculty with affordable, effective tools. With Lumen One, their team integrated design elements from OHM and Waymaker into a new platform that centers high-quality and relevant statistics content, evidence-based teaching practices, data-informed instruction, and timely communication with students. “Our mission is to ensure faculty have the tools they need at an affordable rate to provide the most access possible while improving student results,” says Kim Thanos, Lumen co-founder.

Research from Digital Promise shows that students who used Lumen One Introductory Statistics were twice as likely to pass introductory statistics courses than the control group, with measurable gains on nationally normed exams and long-term GPA improvements. Faculty who used evidence-based practices saw higher student engagement, while students reported stronger learning gains and confidence.

By embedding the DCMP’s design standards into a modern platform, Lumen One takes these principles to the next level. Automated but customizable supports, readiness checks, self-assessments, and contextualized practice help students monitor their progress while giving faculty actionable insights. The result is a learning environment that is not only rigorous and relevant but also adaptable and deeply student-centered.

Looking Forward

The early results are clear: when a high-quality curriculum is paired with modern learning tools and technology, student outcomes improve. From students finding new confidence to faculty like Stephanie Andrews observing greater engagement to national data showing higher pass rates, the message is consistent: intentional curriculum design, amplified by technology, transforms lives.

Dana Center Intro to Stats Lumen One