Innovations in Developmental Mathematics — Getting Past Go

Innovations — large, small, and between — are common in developmental mathematics.  Most of us do not establish ‘Being innovative’ as a goal; rather, we figure out something to do that promises to solve a problem, and this creates the innovation.  Some innovations are very context-dependent, while others are transferable and scalable.  The New Life project (AMATYC Developmental Math Committee) describes innovations that can be locally adaptable and scaled.

The Next Dev Challenge (from Getting Past Go) seeks to gather information on innovations in developmental education, and have the larger community rate the ideas.  The web site is http://gettingpastgo.edthemes.org/ , and we are now in the rating stage of their work.

I encourage you to rate innovations at  the Next Dev Challenge link (http://gettingpastgo.edthemes.org/) . You will need to register in order to rate ideas.  Once you are registered at that site, you can submit your ratings of some innovations (they have far too many for you to rate all of them ).  To find entries of interest to you, open the Next Dev Challenge link and then read submissions. (Be sure that you are logged in.)  You can search for phrases, and narrow the results down to one of four categories (assessment & placement; instruction & delivery; continuous improvement; student supports.  Note that you need to click on “View” for each innovation in order to rate it. In addition, you need to choose each rating (adaptability, evidence, and overall) at the end of each innovation’s page.

We have a professional responsibility to participate in projects like the Next Dev Challenge.  I hope you will be able to share some ratings of innovations.  Clearly, I hope that you will support the innovations related to the New Life project in particular; whether you do this or not, please participate in the rating process!

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2 Comments

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  By Laura Bracken, December 3, 2012 @ 7:55 pm

  I’ve got this bookmarked; thanks for the blog post. I wonder if the people running it thought about the fact that we are getting close to finals and it is hard to find time to breathe, much less do extra work.

  I am particularly interested in looking for projects with qualitative rather than quantitative evidence and that recognizes the constraints of institutions with relatively small enrollments that do not have much flexibility.

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  By Jack Rotman, December 4, 2012 @ 10:09 am

  Yes, I suspect that the people doing the Next Dev Challenge know that we are approaching the end of the semester.

  For research on qualitative issues, you might search for articles by Julie Phelps and Linda Zientek; they’ve been collaborating on research projects for a while. The constraint aspect is a bit more challenging; I will say that smaller institutions often do a better project at improvements … perhaps because they face constraints.

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