By Erin Moss, Co-Editor, DUE Point, Millersville University

Many students and faculty outside of STEM misunderstand, mistrust, and avoid quantitative tools that could be employed in the non-STEM fields where they feel at home. The goal of the Mathematics and Statistics Across the Curriculum project is to increase the use of mathematical and statistical modeling in mostly non-STEM fields. Over a dozen faculty work during the summer to create meaningful quantitative projects to be used later in various non-STEM courses such as social sciences, philosophy, kinesiology, and the arts.

An integral part of the Mathematics and Statistics Across the Curriculum project is the creation of a public archive in which like-minded faculty from around the country can find summaries of the class projects, implementation instructions, a detailed set of notes to the instructor, and follow-up questions for students. These modules are designed to help students and faculty in non-STEM fields build appreciation of quantitative methods and their applications. Project team members anticipate that positive exposure to quantitative thinking and practice will result in a change in students’ attitudes toward applications of math and statistics. I asked Principal Investigator Dr. Reza Abbasian for more details about his work on this interesting project.

The majority of the NSF DUE mathematics projects that focus on curriculum development integrate instructional modules into math courses. How did you come up with the idea to integrate instructional modules into non-STEM coursework? What do you think are the implications of this design?

The genesis of this work came from observations of the PIs (Reza Abbasian, PI and John Sieben, co-PI) and our interests in real world problems and real data. Early in our careers, we recognized that emerging technology (specifically CAS and statistical software) could spark a revolution in how we do and teach mathematics and statistics. Problems that were conceptually within reach of our undergraduates but computationally “messy” were now fair game. While we rejoiced in a technological revolution, we simultaneously encountered growing numbers of students and faculty who wanted no part of quantitative reasoning.

After much discussion, we reached some conclusions: First, a quantitative-adverse faculty member and/or student might change or soften their attitude toward quantitative methods if they are involved in a useful, short, and understandable quantitative application from their own discipline. Next, non-STEM faculty are most apt to include a small section of quantitative application into their existing course if it melds with what they are teaching, is interesting and well-developed, and is ready for implementation with little preparation. For these reasons we rely upon non-STEM faculty for the creation of modules within their discipline and use faculty with more quantitative expertise as mentors.

The finished product will be a readily accessible archive of well-indexed modules on various non-STEM topics that can be incorporated into a faculty member’s existing course with minimal preparation time.

There is a research component to your project as well as the design aspect. What questions will you be exploring as your project progresses?

Our research questions are focused on understanding the experiences of our faculty participants and their students as well as exploring the broader influence of the modules that have been designed. For instance:

• Will students who enroll in courses utilizing the quantitative modeling projects increase their awareness and positive attitude toward applying modeling and technology to solve real life problems?

• Will faculty involved in creating projects and teaching related courses increase their appreciation for the importance of the use of technology to empower students to acquire hands-on practice using the quantitative models?

• Will the existence of an easy access archive to the modeling projects encourage Texas Lutheran University faculty and nationwide faculty to utilize these modules in their courses?

Do you have any preliminary results you could share? Tell us about someone who has been impacted by participating in your project and what it has meant to them.

We have just completed our first year and are readying our participants for the second creative round. In Summer 2021, we welcomed back some of the non-STEM faculty who worked with us last summer and are happy to be joined by some colleagues new to the project! Dr. Jack Davidson from the Philosophy/Theology Department has contributed and taught two modules.  Here are his comments on his experience:

“Last summer the grant Co-Pi John Sieben helped me to develop a short module on mathematical modeling to include in a unit on ethics in science and epidemics. The unit included a critical study of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study which also helped students understand vaccine hesitancy in some communities... It was exciting as a philosopher [to] be able to learn, and teach, some basic mathematical modeling to my students and show that the central concept(s) is/are very powerful in generating data that help us answer important questions, even with respect to issues of value in ethics and ethical decision making.”

Dr. Daniel Braaten from the Political Science/Sociology Department shared the following:

"I had the benefit of working with the grant PI Reza Abbasian to develop a module to use in my introductory course on American Politics. The module was part of the unit on elections in American politics and involved using OLS regression to predict the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election… Many students found the exercise both challenging but also fun and interesting. What most of them liked was that it allowed them to offer a data backed prediction about an event of enormous importance for the country. It also showed students how data and statistical analysis can be used in rigorous ways in the social sciences”.

Learn more about NSF DUE 1905246

Full Project Name: Mathematics and Statistics Across the Curriculum: Empowering Non-STEM Students to Appreciate and Use Quantitative Modeling

Abstract: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1905246&HistoricalAwards=false

Project Contact: Dr. Reza Abbasian, PI; rabbasian@tlu.edu

*Responses in this blog were edited for length and clarity.