Program

In this working group we want to (re)convene researchers and educators interested in understanding the scope of research that can be pursued with Indigenous communities on aspects of mathematics teaching, learning, curriculum, and professional development. A secondary goal of this group is to develop a network of scholars who are interested in advancing research on these areas and who are pursuing or planning to start projects with a focus on Indigenous communities in the United States, the Americas, and internationally. This year’s iteration of the working group will seek to integrate the contexts of Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) into research on mathematics education.

The Education Research at the Interface of Mathematics and Science working group has been a long-standing, productive session at RUME, bringing together researchers across disciplines. This year the working group will focus on our communal experience of developing courses in math-based disciplines that serve life science students, or those not intending careers in math-based disciplines. Across all sciences, mathematical reasoning is cited as an essential skill. However, what kind of mathematical reasoning is essential for this population, and to what depth, remains an open question. Education researchers and instructors alike often cite “modeling”, “graphical reasoning”, and “problem solving” as expected outcomes of the courses they require for their majors -- introductory physics, chemistry and calculus. However,  the specific objectives commonly differ across the disciplines. In light of increased attention focused on designing courses to support these students, crucial questions are emerging that can be addressed only through collaboration across disciplines. (1) What do we mean collectively by “mathematical modeling” in the context of biology and life science? (2) How do we support students to learn to reason about mathematical models flexibly, so it can be applied in other contexts? (3) To what extent can instruction in these courses be grounded in the interests of the student population? For this working group, we invite RUME participants from mathematics and all forms of science education to share perspectives, experience, and knowledge around these questions. A few experienced researchers will describe work designing modeling-based mathematics and physics courses, with ample time for group discussion and collaboration between presentations. Our aim is to provide opportunity for collaboration, identify future lines of inquiry, and compile a set of resources for instructors developing service courses within their departments. 

Critical literacy can be described as understanding, analyzing, and leveraging text and media as reflection of power in socio-political systems (e.g. Cadiero-Kaplan). Critical literacy in mathematics has been part of the socio-political turn in K-12 mathematics education (i.e. Gutiérrez 2013). As such its place in the undergraduate community has been centered on preservice teacher education (e.g. Kyser et al 2016). This conversation is also related to the use of QuantCrit as a framework for quantitative research (e.g. Castillo and Gillborn 2023). Awareness of and use of QuantCrit as a framework is now more common in the DBER community, but our proposal is also grounded by similar approaches in the Data Science for Social Justice community (Jones et al 2023) and emerging conversations in the mathematical biology community. Therefore we propose to consider these frameworks in mathematical scholarship generally across subdisciplines. Rejecting the neutrality of mathematics may involve examining our assumptions and biases, the assumptions and biases of the models we create and work with, who we choose to work with, how we work, and more, with an understanding that this work is done in a socio-political context.

The overall goal of this working group is to ultimately identify research quality assessment instruments that can be used to understand progress towards critical literacy in mathematical practice. However, we suspect that first, we may need to create a shared and refined understanding about what critical literacy in mathematical practice is. We intend this as an active collaboration working group. After a short introduction of the goals, background, and format, the remainder of the working group time will be used to co-construct knowledge. We will share examples, references, and research that will help us come to a shared understanding of critical literacy applied in the context of doing mathematics. We will then pivot to conversations on the assessment of this shared definition. 

This working group brings together researchers who focus on teaching and learning in community college mathematics. Supported through past working group sessions at RUME (2012-2020, 2022-2024) and committee work within AMATYC (2009-2019), a growing group of faculty (6 faculty in 2009 to more than 40 to-date), has been collaborating to advance a national agenda and create a network of community college mathematics education research. The work from the 2019 conference devoted part of the time to brainstorming and editing at the 2020 conference for Spring 2020 final submissions. This work resulted in at least 18 submission ideas for a special issue of the MathAMATYC educator with and the publication of 8 research articles. Multiple collaborative research proposals were envisioned and submitted for funding after the 2020 conference. As a result of the 2022 conference, a subgroup of 22 working group members have also been meeting regularly to discuss how definitions of “college level” mathematics could be reconceptualized. Over the past two years collaboration at the conference working group has originated several groups working to produce original research on topics such as trauma-informed pedagogies in mathematics, transferability of mathematics courses, and neurodiversity in undergraduate mathematics courses. 

We propose to leverage the RUME working group session to continue to grow the network of community college mathematics faculty, university research faculty, and doctoral students working to develop and disseminate research on and with community college mathematics stakeholders. We welcome new working group participants who are seeking to conduct or are conducting research in mathematics teaching and learning within community colleges and are interested in advancing this agenda through collaborative or coordinated research projects and focused plans for the dissemination of research.

The focus for 2025 is to collaborate on: (1) continuation of research topics developed from previous years’ meetings (2) creating and expanding collaborations between returning and new members of the group; and (3) further develop our interprofessional organization collaborations for future conferences and special publications focused on community college mathematics research. 

In this returning working group, participants will work with colleagues across RUME (Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education) to learn about what research has been published around the use of technology in undergraduate mathematics teaching and learning and brainstorm how to design new studies. For this group, the term technology will be used broadly to mean any tools that are connected to computers and calculators. Specific breakdowns into categories may include online synchronous teaching and learning, online asynchronous teaching and learning, digital tools for mathematical student learning in general (including in-person teaching), using computer programming for mathematical learning, using technology in the social context of learning (e.g., digital didactic objects), technology in statistics and data science education, and other categories that might emerge as the working group comes together. Participants may bring their own ideas and proposals for research in technology to share and discuss.  Graduate students and early researchers are encouraged to participate. The results of the working group will include ongoing collaborations among the participants, plans for addressing gaps in the research, and disseminating to researchers and practitioners what work has been published and what is to come.  

This long-standing working group focuses on research on the professional development and growth of college mathematics instructors, regardless of their level of experience or expertise. Many current members have a particular interest in the professional growth of novice college teachers (e.g., graduate students in their first teaching roles). The group meets online periodically throughout the year and face-to-face at the RUME conference annually. The group’s goals, historically and currently, continue to drive the focus of annual meetings.

Working group time at the conference is structured to bring in researchers new to the field through a variety of scholarly activities: exploring and discussing literature, giving and receiving feedback on research projects that are in progress, brainstorming potential collaborations and mentoring relationships for both long- and short-term studies, and continuing to discuss issues central to the field and ways to address them. Participants in this group include researchers in all areas of the professional preparation, induction, and development of college mathematics instructors, from across institutional types. Research areas include, but are not limited to, factors that shape instructional practices and related professional learning activities, experiences of instructors as they attend to student thinking in their instruction, and changes in instructional orientations, planning, and practices as teaching experiences accumulate. Researchers need not present their own work to participate in the group and provide feedback to others. Dissemination from the group is broad, from publications aimed at education research audiences to practice-oriented college mathematics instructor and mathematician communities. What drives the working group is meeting the needs of its members. Working group facilitators have been involved in various related groups (e.g., MAA-AMS Joint Committee on Teaching Assistants and Part-Time Faculty, MAA Committee on Professional Development), have conducted grant-funded research in the area, and have presented at the Conference on RUME previously.

Continuing the momentum from last year’s Research in Graduate Mathematics Education (RGME) working group session, we envision this year’s working group as a space for those interested in hearing about, discussing, or collaborating on RGME. Despite the importance of graduate education to the field of mathematics and mathematics education, there has been minimal research on graduate mathematics education, especially compared to undergraduate mathematics education. Recently, however, there has been significant emerging interest in graduate mathematics education from both practitioners and researchers. Still, there are few formal research venues (or “homes”) for this work to occur in a sustained fashion. This working group is intended to fill this gap by providing space for interested stakeholders to convene and work collaboratively on research-based solutions to improving graduate mathematics education.

Last year’s session featured several conversations and talks about the state of RGME (ranging from conversations about graduate student identity formation and critical conversations about qualifying exams to what it means to have a “student-focused” graduate program). This year, we will continue these conversations with a focus on ethical considerations and questions that ought to guide RGME and orient our approaches to research. Along the way, we will consider ways to be responsive to calls that all research in graduate education ought to attend to issues of (in)equity and consider if/how questions of equity (and ethics more generally) must be taken up differently in the unique context of graduate mathematics education. Building on research in STEM graduate education, we will consider orienting questions such as: What does it mean to do ethical research in mathematics graduate education? and How can we develop ethical research collaborations with graduate students? When should we?

This working group features several activities including: (1) a Q&A panel session introducing participants to the field of RGME with researchers sharing the story of their research and how they got into the field, (2) break-out sessions to meet and learn from others with similar interests and share ongoing research, (3) a presentation and follow-up discussion focused on issues of ethics and equity and how they inform our approaches and methods in RGME, and finally (4) time for forming and developing collaborations, having longer discussions on a topic of interest, or receiving feedback on your current research or mentoring on how to get started in RGME.

The integration of computation and coding into post-secondary mathematics education has seen increasing interest, yet there is a need for a dedicated space within the Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME) community to focus on these topics. This working group aims to address this gap by fostering a community of scholars and practitioners invested in the role of coding and computation in undergraduate mathematics, particularly regarding its impact on student reasoning and classroom implementation. While existing initiatives explore coding within other contexts, the focus here is on using coding to support and expand mathematical learning at the undergraduate level. The first steps and goals for this year’s working group are to (1) build a network of researchers interested in computation in post-secondary mathematics education, (2) review ongoing efforts in implementing coding in mathematics, and (3) explore the connections between computational, mathematical, and algorithmic thinking. Activities will include participant introductions, discussions on terminology, and working groups focused on specific areas such as computation in proof cycles, multiple representations, and mathematical communication. Attendees will gain access to a community of researchers, collaborative opportunities, and resources such as a working group report and ongoing communication through a listserv. This working group will lay the foundation for sustained exploration of how coding and computation can enhance undergraduate mathematics education and provide the space within the RUME community to have more nuanced conversations and delve into this research area.

This working group solicits individuals interested in learning about and pursuing research on the teaching and learning of undergraduate stochastics—statistics, probability, and data science. This includes research interests pertaining to, but not limited to, the theoretical analysis and/or empirical investigation of introductory and advanced courses in these fields. In addition to these strands of research we welcome those researchers who work in the space of stochastics education pertaining to pre-service and in-service teacher (K-12) courses oriented as well as courses aimed at prepare graduate students to teach in these fields. Further, we encourage individuals interested in problem spaces shared between the undergraduate mathematics, stochastics (statistics, probability, and data science), and computer science communities to consider taking part in the working group.

With growing enrollments in Statistics, Probability and Data Science courses and the increasing demand for a data-skilled workforce, there is a need for research into how students think and learn about concepts and practices in these fields. Often, researchers interested in these areas are isolated. This working group provides a means for those researchers interested in statistics and data science education to come together to share their knowledge and ideas, while building a lasting community dedicated to moving the research field of statistics and data science education forward. Such collaborations may inform the practices and research agendas in all communities. Join us as our community grows. We are a small and supportive group and want to help anyone with an interest in statistics and data science education.