The UTMOST Project (Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks) is coupling the use of Sage - comprehensive free open source mathematics software - with existing free open textbooks, to make it possible for faculty and institutions to more easily bring the power of mathematics software to their students. Authors of open source software and open textbooks provide licenses that permit free copying and editing of their work, allowing others to adapt or extend them to suit their needs or make improvements. A major project activity is to convert existing open textbooks into web-based dynamic e-texts that integrate traditional mathematical exposition with Sage code and hands-on demonstrations. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its use of the innovative Sage environment and its active community of users and practitioners. Eight diverse undergraduate institutions are helping to test and refine these materials using a comprehensive, professional evaluation procedure. The main goal driving this project is to create technical and pedagogical tools and methods that greatly simplify the deployment and use of powerful software to increase learning and experimentation in undergraduate mathematics. The potential broader impacts of this project are strong given the distributed nature of both development and deployment.
Our team provided evaluation of the workshops, test site implementation, and overall dissemination model for UTMOST. The project team delivered four workshops, one each summer from 2011-2014, on the use of open-source Sage mathematical software in undergraduate mathematics courses. The workshops served 73 participants (53 unique individuals, some of whom attended more than once), who were mostly mathematics faculty from a variety of higher education institutions. The team provided intensive support to twelve implementers at eight test sites in the academic year following the workshop; and the implementers provided feedback on course materials and implementation of Sage and shared insights with new workshop participants the following year. Some implementers used the SALG (Student Assessment of their Learning Gains) online survey to gather feedback from students about their learning experience. The UTMOST model of faculty development and sharing open-source resources for mathematics teaching has several clear strengths: A responsive workshop design that provided individual and collaborative work time with expertise readily available to assist participants in preparing their own course materials Strong implementation support from project leaders within the test site model High responsiveness of the leader/developer team to user needs, input and concerns A sense of community with other participants in the workshops and among the larger Sage education user group. These features appear to support good adoption of Sage into mathematics courses at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum, among those who attended. Several faculty implemented Sage across multiple courses. The results also point to some limitations of this faculty development model. The one-on-one site support model is expensive, and the workshop model appears to serve somewhat advanced users better than users who are new to Sage. There are untapped opportunities to incorporate learning theory and instructional design principles into the workshops to help ensure that the materials developed are educationally effective, and perhaps to help move instructors’ classroom approaches toward active instructional approaches that are supported by education research. The level of student resistance to the technology was somewhat surprising; more thought needs to be given to the sources and nature of this resistance, especially students' perception of Sage as an "add-on" or non-essential course feature. This may imply a need for teaching strategies that integrate Sage more fully and use it in developing central course ideas; support materials or strategies for getting students started with the tool may also be useful. The project has intellectual merit through advancing the use of Sage software and its educational applications among mathematics faculty across the U.S. Participating instructors have enhanced their teaching by using existing materials such as texts with integrated Sage activities and demos, and by developing new course-specific elements such as classroom demonstrations and visualizations, homework tasks and projects for their own settings. The project has broader impact because all the materials developed are freely accessible to other instructors. Work with implementers has provided insights about the challenges and opportunities for supporting students and faculty in applying this open-source software system in college classrooms.
