Professional Development & Resources
What is OPEN Math?
The OPEN Math or Online Professional Enhancement and Capacity Building for Instructional Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics project is improving math instruction throughout the country by providing high quality online professional development (PD) workshops around themes of active learning tailored to higher education math faculty through a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to understand effective practices in delivering online teaching and learning-focused PD.
Read the full project abstract for the MAA here, and for CU-B here.
Why Professional Development?
Using the metaphor of a lever (a simple machine used to move an object at one location by applying a smaller force somewhere else), we believe that supporting and nourishing the community of leaders/providers/facilitators of teaching-focused professional development can have large effects downstream in our classroom teaching and even upstream in the change-culture of our departments and institutions.
Teaching-focused professional development can...
- help instructors improve skills in research-based teaching by providing resources and models, facilitating changes in knowledge and beliefs, and welcoming them into a community of common practice;
- build leadership capacity to strengthen research-based teaching in coordinated math courses, across programs, and within the larger mathematics community; and
- strengthen learning, encourage persistence, and broaden participation of students in the downstream classes.
Why Online?
- We can use and strengthen the new skills we have developed (since 2020) in teaching & leading groups online.
- We can make professional development more affordable, more accessible, and more equitable.
- We can reduce the environmental footprint of running professional development and disseminating research on teaching and learning.
Upcoming Events & Activities
Registration Deadline Approaching
Implementing Research-Based Instruction in Introductory Proofs Courses
Join the Waitlist
Designing PD Programs for GTAs
Join the Waitlist
Engaging Multivariable Calculus Students using CalcPlot3D and 3D-Printed Surfaces
Join The Proofs Project team for this online workshop on July 29-30 & August 1-2 from 11am - 5pm ET.
This workshop, facilitated by the College Mathematics Instructor Development Source (CoMInDS) team, is currently full, but you can still complete the workshop application to secure a spot on the waitlist through Thursday, June 20.
This workshop is currently full, but you can still sign up for the waitlist.
Project Team
- Doug Ensley (deensley@ship.edu), Shippensburg University (Pennsylvania)
- Stan Yoshinobu (stan@math.toronto.edu), University of Toronto
- Sandra Laursen (sandra.laursen@colorado.edu), University of Colorado Boulder
- Tim Archie (tim.archie@colorado.edu), University of Colorado Boulder
- Audrey Malagon (amalagon@maa.org), MAA Senior Director of Programs
OPEN Math is a collaborative project between the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU-B). Support for OPEN Math is provided by the National Science Foundation: MAA Award DUE-2111260 and CU-B Award DUE-2111273.