The Right Math at the Right Time for Each Student

What’s New

  • Building Equity in Math Education: Tia McNair and the Launch Years Initiative

    Tia McNair is an expert in equity, inclusion, and student success. She is vice president in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and executive director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC.

    McNair is also a member of the Launch Years Consensus Panel, a group of education leaders and advocates charged with guiding, developing, and promoting recommendations published in Launch Years: A New Vision for the Transition from High School to Postsecondary Mathematics.

    In this video, McNair points out that, for equity in mathematics education to be achieved, policies and structures at all levels of the educational system must be re-imagined.

    Rethinking the Role of Math: Pamela Burdman and the Launch Years Initiative

    Pamela Burdman is a nationally recognized authority in college access, readiness, and success. She is the founder and executive director of the Just Equations project. Burdman is also a member of the Launch Years Consensus Panel.

    In this video, Burdman suggests a number of issues that must be addressed for mathematics education in the United States to become more equitable.

    Higher Ed Update Newsletter (October 8, 2020)

    Dana Center to Offer Low-Cost Mathematics Courses (announcement)

    Higher Ed In Brief Newsletter (August/September 2020)

    Dana Center to Develop Corequisite Toolkit

    Higher Ed In Brief Newsletter (March/April 2020)

    "Shifting to Virtual Teaching in Higher Ed Mathematics" (blog series)

    "Math Against Evil" (blog post)

The status quo is unacceptable.

Hundreds of thousands of students fail higher education math courses every year.

Hundreds of thousands more students pass courses that do not prepare them for their futures.

We have the opportunity. We have the momentum.

Join the mathematics pathways movement today.

Explore the ideas, tools, and resources provided by the Dana Center and our fellow joyful conspirators to help make the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) vision a reality.

  • Explore The DCMP background, the DCMP model and how the Dana Center approaches this work. 
  • Learn About math pathways, read about the evidence supporting pathways and review Essential Ideas for people in different professional roles. 
  • Take Action with recommendations and resources specific to different levels of the system.
  • Delve into Where We Work, including initiatives led by the Dana Center nationally and in more than a dozen states.
  • View Resources in our searchable library.
Learn More about the DCMP Across Multiple Levels of the System
Leaders set a common national vision for math pathways.

What does it look like?

  • The professional associations of mathematics have reached consensus on the need for modernized mathematics pathways.
  • Diverse organizations are advocating for coordinated action around a set of Core Principles
  • Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics (TPSE Math) is convening faculty leaders to develop an action plan for improving undergraduate math education.

What is the Dana Center's role?

  • To provide thought leadership to mobilize stakeholders for scaled adoption of math pathways.
  • To build coalitions among stakeholders with diverse resources and relationships.
  • To engage and mobilize stakeholders to action.
  • Learn more about the Dana Center's national work.

Resources

Mathematics faculty and other leaders mobilize to set a vision for math pathways in their state.

What does it look like?

  • A task force of faculty leaders across 2- and 4-year sectors and representatives of policy agencies collaborate to establish recommendations for statewide implementation.
  • Leaders across stakeholder groups create conditions to enable institutions to implement.
  • Learn how to Take Action at the state level.

What is the Dana Center's role?

  • To provide tools and service to support the process in establishing a vision for pathways and addressing challenges such as transfer and applicability.
  • To support a network of leaders across states in building and sustaining momentum and in moving state-level work to action at the local level.
  • See where the Dana Center works.

Resources

Institutions commit to implementing math pathways at scale through a faculty-led, administrator-supported, and policy-enabled process.

What does it look like?

  • Institutional leaders charge a cross-functional leadership team with implementing math pathways.  The team identifies three to six math pathways based on local needs and plans for how the pathways will be structured.
  • Systemic change is achieved through collaboration and action across stakeholder groups to establish math pathways as normative practice for all students.
  • Strategic communications and engagement build understanding of and support for the math pathways across the institution.
  • Learn how to Take Action at the institutional level.

What is the Dana Center's role?

  • To provide institutional planning tools, resources for communications, and exemplars for use as models.
  • To help create cross-institutional learning opportunities and to disseminate information linking the local action with state and national efforts.

Resources

Institutions commit to implementing math pathways at scale through a faculty-led, administrator-supported, and policy-enabled process.

What does it look like?

  • Content of the courses within pathways is aligned to the needs of programs of study and of citizens and consumers in modern society.
  • Faculty intentionally design pathways courses to draw upon evidence-based practice to support students as learners.
  • Pathways are structured to support most students to be successful in a college-level math course in their first semester.
  • Faculty receive training and support to teach new courses and improve instruction.
  • Learn how to Take Action at the state level.

What is the Dana Center's role?

  • To provide institutional planning tools, resources for communications, and exemplars for use as models.
  • To help create cross-institutional learning opportunities and to disseminate information linking the local action with state and national efforts.

Resources