This project, a collaboration between MIT and the NSDL Resource Center at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), is working to further extend the impact of the MIT Math CI Space, an online site where educators from throughout the mathematics community can develop and share strategies and materials for teaching mathematical communication to undergraduate math majors. In this online space, educators are discussing pedagogical needs and exploring potential solutions. Once a good solution is identified, it is classroom tested and the resulting materials are uploaded for other educators to use and further refine. To encourage and facilitate this discussion and improvement of pedagogy, materials and discussions are tightly integrated within the web space. This integration is being achieved via a WordPress-based platform. Pedagogical materials for mathematical communication developed through these collaborations are available to the larger community via the NSDL-supported MathDL Pathway. The MIT Math CI Space was initially created in 2009.
The Mathcomm website was created in order to facilitate the creation, collection, and dissemination of good practice in teaching mathematical communication at the university level. It is based on a suite of specially designed WordPress themes and plugins, that were contributed to the WordPress community. The site is actively curated and has been populated with material mainly from courses offered by the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is publicly available through the Mathematical Association of America's Mathematical Sciences Digital Library, and is designed to encourage discussion and submission of further material connected with instruction in mathematical communication. Google analytics show substantial use of the site. As part of the outreach component of this project, a two day workshop was conducted at the Joint Mathematical Meetings in San Diego in January, 2013, at which the structure and content of the site was presented and contributions to it were solicited. The Educational Collaboration Space is a further extension of the web infrastructure created under this grant. It is designed to encourage sharing of good practice in education, and the creation of virtual educational communities. It has been used by the MIT Departments of Mathematics and Physics, and elsewhere.
