Major NSF grant advancing Catalyst skills instruction

A new National Science Foundation grant of nearly $300,000 will enhance Ripon’s ability to produce graduates who are able to apply quantitative reasoning to decision-making.

The grant will help build capacity for interdisciplinary quantitative reasoning instruction among faculty so that they, in turn, can apply the skills across disciplines in the new skills-based curriculum. These include non-quantitative fields such as communication, languages and the fine arts.

Quantitative reasoning is the application of basic mathematics, logical and problem-solving skills to analysis of real-world needs. Catalyst 120, a required course where students develop skills that can be transferred to the workplace, focuses on quantitative reasoning. Different sections are taught by faculty across a variety of academic disciplines.

While quantitative reasoning instruction is limited to math classes at many institutions around the country, “in this project, we will leverage the institutional and curricular strengths of Ripon College to develop quantitative reasoning skills in all of our students, regardless of major,” says Andrea Young. She is the acting vice president and dean of faculty, associate professor of mathematical sciences, and a principal investigator of the NSF grant.

In Ripon’s grant proposal, authors suggest this approach “provides students with the opportunity to use quantitative reasoning skills within disciplinary contexts and allows for broad transferability of these skills.”

According to Young, Ripon is training students to use numerical evidence to make convincing and correct arguments. “This approach is broadly valuable to all of us as well-educated citizens, but also to employers who are looking for students with at least some degree of fluency in quantitative methods,” she says. “The way in which Ripon College provides quantitative reasoning instruction from an interdisciplinary approach is unique.”

Faculty development opportunities will be provided in the form of faculty learning communities and mentored course development. The first yearlong faculty learning community began in January and has 13 faculty participants from across all academic divisions.

“Numbers and quantitative reasoning touch all of us, not just those of us in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics),” Young says. “We also are going to study the effects of this interdisciplinary approach to quantitative reasoning and instruction on student learning and attitudes toward quantitative reasoning.”

She says grant reviewers were enthusiastic about how Ripon faculty have structured the Catalyst curriculum to employ faculty from different disciplines, all teaching for the same purposes. “That demonstrates that our faculty had to work together in a collaborative way to develop that curriculum and then to maintain it.”

Other principal investigators on the project are Soren Hauge, professor of economics and the John Barlow Murray ’37 and Nellie Weiss Murray ’37 Professor in Economics; Matt Knoester, associate professor of educational studies; McKenzie Lamb, associate professor of mathematical sciences; and Steve Martin, associate professor of communication.