FOCI Series 6: Supporting Academic Advisors to Scale Mathematics Pathways

• Engage in a safe, participant-centered learning environment for the FOCI cohort.
• Set goals for participation and growth during this professional learning series.
• Understand a student’s math journey to and through math pathways and how academic advising fits into the successful implementation and scale of math pathways.
• Develop a student persona as an archetype of a broader student group and its behaviors, assumptions, and expectations, which empower courageous conversations among academic advisors.

• Understand how math education promotes upward social and economic mobility.
• Understand how academic advising structures, policies, processes, and practices influence an institution’s efforts to scale math pathways.
• Identify opportunities to use data to analyze and interrogate access, learning, and outcomes.

• Examine a case study to shift academic advising to increase student retention and scale math pathways.
• Identify department-level strategies and their impact to transform students’ math journey.
• Define individual advising strengths and challenges to support department-level goals and future efforts to scale math pathways.

• Learn about explicit and implicit bias and evidence of implicit bias in advising.
• Understand students’ math journey and/or sentiment towards math content and relevance.
• Identify strategies to overcome the impact of implicit bias on advisor-student relationships.

• Understand stereotype threat, its causes, and its impact toward self-concern.
• Learn about the theory of growth mindset and the connection between growth mindset and academic advising.
• Identify key strategies to apply growth mindset when advising students in their math pathways.

• Understand the completion agenda and opportunities and challenges facing exploratory students toward the national educational attainment goal.  
• Learn about the strengths-based advising process and its influence on guiding exploratory students to enroll in their math pathway.
• Engage in constructive discussions using strengths-based advising tools to identify students’ strengths, talents, and skills toward their academic and career aspirations.
• Prioritize department-level training opportunities and strategies for ongoing professional development beyond FOCI Series 6.

Actively participating in the full series of 6 sessions (12 total hours)
Each session is 2 hours long. During each session, we use authentic situations to explore, struggle with, and make sense of advising challenges. Session delivery uses the video and audio features of Zoom. This technology enables us to converse “face-to-face” in real time, in large and small groups, without the expense and hassle of traveling to a central location.

Preparing for each session and trying new ideas in your own classroom after each session
Prior to each session, you are expected to do a limited amount of preparation work, often a short reading, video viewing, document analysis, and/or personal reflection. After each session, you commit to trying a technique or approach we discussed during the session.

Contributing to the large and small group discussions; supporting your peers
Contribute in the large and small group discussions, bringing your own perspectives and prior experiences into the conversations. Collegially engage in conversations and activities focused on combining your expertise and experiences with proven strategies to guide students’ math journey to and through math pathways.

FOCI materials
You will receive high-quality, well-researched, and thoughtful materials for the entire series. All session materials (readings, reflections, handouts, and PowerPoints) will be provided electronically. You will also have access to recordings and chat transcripts of the sessions so that you can review the content on your own throughout the series and thereafter.

Support from trained facilitators
Dana Center implementation and professional learning specialists will lead the sessions. These individuals are available to answer questions and provide support during and between the sessions. They can address content and application questions as well as technology issues (e.g., the Zoom platform).

Certificate of completion
Participants who fully attend at least 3 sessions will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the series that may be submitted with tenure or promotional materials for your department. The topics and number of hours of professional learning you completed will be listed on the certificate.