This project seeks to improve the early college-level STEM quantitative curriculum. Connecting the modeling, statistics, computation, and calculus (MSCC) subjects among themselves is important for aligning the quantitative curriculum with other STEM disciplines. The first step is to connect calculus to modeling and statistics. Doing so often involves the use of computer technology. This project creates a community of educator-scholars who can inform each other about the connections among the MSCC subjects, increase awareness of the advantages of integrating the MSCC subjects among themselves and with other STEM disciplines, improve and expand resources that can be useful in teaching in a variety of institutions, create faculty development opportunities to disseminate successful approaches, and develop materials useful in assessing student mastery of concepts relating to MSCC.
National reports, from a wide range of STEM (and other) disciplines, call for interdisciplinary alignment and the enhancement of the traditional quantitative curriculum to emphasize modeling, statistics, and computation. This Phase II proposal draws on successful demonstrations at individual institutions which achieve this alignment by unifying the MSCC subjects. One example is the Applied Calculus/Statistical Modeling first-year courses at Macalester College in which students from a range of disciplines gain strong skills and conceptual understanding of multivariate quantitative topics and mastery of important statistical techniques such as analysis of covariance. Modeling is a major theme of both course, and modern computation is integrated into both. Another example is the bio-calculus program at Appalachian State University designed to integrate mathematics and statistics into the biology curriculum. In this program, calculus is successfully introduced to students by dealing with discrete models motivated by the analysis of scientific data.
The topics emphasized in this project are at the heart of a solid quantitative education for STEM students. The project engages faculty in diverse institutional settings, helping to ensure that the materials developed are broadly adoptable. Assessment in the form of a concept inventory is an integral component of the project, which helps demonstrate the effectiveness of the innovations. The emphasis on faculty development opportunities, both webinars and summer workshops, provides a mechanism for uptake of the innovations by faculty from a broad range of institutions.
