Kellogg Community College has been awarded a $593,783 grant by the National Science Foundation for professional development programs aimed at improving math instruction at Michigan community colleges.
The grant project – titled “State-wide Professional Development to Promote Active Learning in Mathematics for Michigan Community Colleges” – is a collaborative partnership between KCC and the Michigan Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (MichMATYC).
The project will be run by KCC Math Professor David Tannor, principal investigator and MichMATYC president, with Henry Ford College Math Professor and MichMATYC Secretary/Treasurer Sam Bazzi as co-principal investigator.
According to Tannor, the initiative is designed “to increase Michigan community college mathematics instructors’ awareness and use of evidence-based instruction; train and mentor instructors on how to implement and sustain active learning strategies in their courses; and explore relationships between instructors’ self-efficacy for active learning and its implementation in mathematics courses.”
The project will involve the creation and execution of two training programs for math instructors focused on active learning, mentoring and peer observation, as well as the development of a statewide community of faculty learners through the use of “Teaching Squares,” a cohort-based program through which a group of four instructors work together through peer observation to improve their teaching practice.
The three-and-a-half-year project began this month and is estimated to run through February 2028.
The grant was awarded as part of the NSF’s $14.5 million Innovation in Two-Year College in STEM Education (ITYC) program, a STEM-based initiative that “aims to support potentially transformative projects that will advance innovative, evidence-based practices at two-year colleges nationwide in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education,” according to the organization.
The KCC/MichMATYC award is one of 35 total awards made to institutions in 18 states and the District of Columbia as part of the initiative, a goal of which NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan says is “to reach more young people who have bright futures ahead of them in the STEM community.”
“Community colleges play a critical role in training people from all parts of the country for a variety of STEM careers including future scientists, engineers, and technicians,” Panchanathan said in a statement. “The Innovation in Two-Year College in STEM Education program is essential to how we expand pathways and opportunities so that more talented people from every part of the nation have the opportunity to make their way into STEM.”
The NSF is an independent federal agency that supports STEM initiatives across the United States. MichMATYC is the state affiliate of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, an organization dedicated to the development and advocacy of mathematics education and faculty in the first two years of college.
For more information, contact Tannor at tannord@kellogg.edu or Bazzi at sbazzi@hfcc.edu.
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