Collaborative Research: Personalized Learning Pathways in Calculus

This collaborative project from Montana State University, Iowa State University, and San Diego State University aims to serve the national interest by developing a personalized learning system to support undergraduate student learning. Calculus is a central early mathematics course and improved calculus outcomes are key to better retention and overall success across many STEM degree programs. This Level 2 IUSE Engaged Student Learning project will develop a Calculus Cognitive Diagnostic (CCD), which will be freely available to help instructors better personalize instruction to support students with many different levels of mathematical preparation. The CCD builds from already developed algorithmic tools and will allow instructors to gather data on students’ skills so that they can quickly adjust to students’ strengths and needs. Understanding students’ mastery of skills and concepts in calculus is challenging. The project is focused on creating an user-friendly tool for educators and researchers that centers usability, flexibility, and content coverage. The project will also develop professional development materials for educators to implement CCD-supported weekly formative assessments in their courses. The project will generate knowledge by investigating the following research questions. (1) To what extent does the CCD provide reliable and valid diagnostic information about student skill mastery? (2) To what extent can the CCD reveal hierarchical relationships among calculus skills and inform our understanding of student learning trajectories? (3) How do instructors experience and use CCD-generated formative feedback to guide instruction and support students? The research plan is particularly focused on exploring these questions across a variety of student backgrounds and preparation. The project team will be advised by an expert advisory board and project outcomes will be widely disseminated through papers, presentations, and sharing of project materials through the widely used LASSO (Learning about STEM Student Outcomes) learning platform. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.