Component Two: Professional Development for Equity and Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning
What are Monthly Math Jams?
Monthly Math Jams (Jams) are scheduled three-hour monthly meetings of students, peer tutors and professors to improve students’ success and retention in their classes, create a community of support among the three groups, and to promote the various services at the college. Every month during a semester, each Learning Resource Center (LRC) is reserved from 9 am until noon on a Friday at all three main campuses. As students enter a Jam, they are greeted by an LRC representative, asked to sign-in, given a flyer that has information about a relevant college service(s), then directed to a peer tutor or professor that can best support the student based on the class or content they want to improve on. There are many unscripted variations of what may happen at any Jam. For example, it is very common to see peer tutors working with several groups of students, a professor working with a student, two professors working with a group of students, a group of students working together, or a student who just wants to work alone but have the support available in case they need it.
How do students find out about Math Jams?
Students are invited to these events through announcements in their classes, schoolwide advertisements on marquees, weekly event emails, word of mouth from fellow students, and flyers in the LRCs.
How effective are Math Jams?
This is a great question and difficult to answer. Even with definitive student data on success and persistence, we cannot say that Math Jam was the cause. At best, we can compare student success and persistence rates to those who have not attended Math Jam and that data will be forthcoming.
Most Math Jams had surveys given to the students which can give some evidence as to the effectiveness of the Jam. Three questions which are relevant to the goals of the Jam are:
- Please rate the support you received at today’s Jam?
- Please rate the networking opportunity, were you able to meet a new professor, peer tutor or other student?
- How likely are you to come to the next Math Jam?
Responses were reported on a five-star scale with five stars being the “best”. Overwhelmingly, five stars were given in response to each question.
The table below shows the number of students that have been served through Math Jams since their inception in October 2023.
|
Date of Jam |
Number of students in attendance |
Number of Peer Tutors |
Number of Faculty |
|---|---|---|---|
|
10/6/2023 |
33 |
12 |
10 |
|
11/3/2023 |
38 |
12 |
10 |
|
12/1/2023 |
66 |
12 |
12 |
|
1/26/2024 |
20 |
9 |
5 |
|
2/9/2024 |
64 |
11 |
11 |
|
3/15/2024 |
N/A |
|
|
|
4/26/2024 |
N/A |
|
|
|
5/3/2024 |
N/A |
|
|
What have participants said about previous Math Jams?
Student support for Math Jams is overwhelmingly positive. Many students have indicated that the time went by too fast. A common comment is that students appreciate that faculty are available at Jams. They like the tutors, but having the faculty supporting the event makes it “more comforting”.
Faculty also have commented on the Jams. It is very common to hear, “this was fun”. The faculty enjoy supporting students from their classes and even more so from different classes. The faculty also comment that the peer tutors are very capable and professional, an asset to the college. The sentiment has also been reciprocal by tutors to faculty. During one Jam, a faculty member, peer tutor and group of students were discussing applications of mathematics and the career opportunities that majors in Mathematics have coming to them.
As part of component two of the grant, our goal is to provide our math faculty with professional development equity and culturally responsive teaching, in order to created change from within. The grant, Math UP proposes to institutionalize a comprehensive quality and teaching and learning professional development program that intentionally integrates and culturally relevant high impact practices into redesigned math courses. As an institution, we are invested in faculty teaching development that prioritizes equity-minded pedagogy and practices that support specifically our Hispanic and African American students. Some of the conferences that we have been able to attend thanks for the Math UP grant are, Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators (AHSIE), Alliance of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), Strengthening Student Success Conference, and many more.
Summary
The retreat took place July 24th and July 25th from 8:30am-3pm at the Temecula campus.
A total of 21 math faculty attended: 4 adjunct and 16 full-time. It was organized and facilitated by the Math UP coordinators Angelica Baccari, Patrick Kenyon, Adam Manriquez, and Luis Mondragon. It featured guest speakers Dean, Dr. Alma Ramirez; Title V Director, Letica Luna Sims; English Professor, Addison Palacios; Financial Aid Director, Whitney Griffiths; and SI and Embedded Tutor Coordinator Kathalena Rios.
The objectives of the retreat were to:
- Familiarize Math Faculty with Math UP Components and Title V objectives.
- Discuss what it means to be an HSI.
- Explore the Student Experience via a Student Panel
- Carry out a Syllabus X-ray
- Discuss How to Incorporate Financial literacy in Math 105, Math 110, and Math 140
- Review How to be Part of and Support Embedded Tutoring
- Learn How to Get Involve with Math UP in the next Academic Years
These objectives were based on the following key institutional goals established for the Math UP project:
- Goal (1): Strengthen institutional capacity to improve first year completion strategies in transfer-level Math to support each student through their academic pathway.
- Goal (2) Reducing time to degree completion and exit points to maximize probability of graduation and transfer.
- Goal (3): Improve curriculum and teaching strategies to use more culturally responsive, inclusive learning methods, and pedagogical approaches that meet the needs of Hispanic students from underrepresented communities in transfer-level Math.
Faculty Feedback
Overall, the anecdotal and survey feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Faculty reported enjoying the hands-on activities and presentations. Moreover, they expressed enthusiasm towards future professional development opportunities and other retreats. The only negative feedback was about the food and the desired to having more time with the student panel and more time for activities. Below is the feedback collected via a 10-question online survey. A total of eleven faculty provided participated in the survey.