Calculus Reform at the UW

The department has completed the second year of a three-year calculus reform project. As highlighted in previous newsletters, the first two quarters of our gateway science and engineering calculus course (Math 124 and Math 125) have been significantly restructured. Smaller lecture class sizes (now 81 students vs. 160 students), smaller quiz section sizes (now 27 students vs. 40 students) and increased quiz section time (now 130 minutes/week vs. 100 minutes/week) are key features of the reformed course.

But, as is well known, proposing change, implementing change and succeeding are three different pieces of the curricular reform puzzle. After several years of planning and two years of dedicated implementation, we have successfully put into action a ``continuous improvement model,'' whereby feedback from instructors and students is used to continually finetune and improve the course. Instructor feedback comes primarily through weekly meetings, which have the side benefit of improved collegiality. Moreover, these weekly meetings insure a more uniform student experience from one instructor to another. Of course, the instructors maintain their own styles and approaches, but a certain degree of uniformity (homework, worksheets, number of exams, final exam) has proved very popular for everyone involved. Student feedback comes in the form of extensive assessment data obtained through our work with the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR).

In the end, we have happily arrived at a model that is providing a satisfying experience for instructors, students and graduate teaching assistants. A full accounting of the second year of calculus reform, in the form of our report to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is available at this web page.

Dave Collingwood