Engineering Commons^™

Calculus Reform: Increasing Stem Retention And Post-Requisite Course Success While Closing The Retention Gap For Women And Underrepresented Minority Students, Doug Bullock, Janet Callahan, Jocelyn B. S. Cullers

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise State University (BSU) implemented an across-the-board reform of calculus instruction during the 2014 calendar year. The details of the reform, described elsewhere (Bullock, 2015), (Bullock 2016), involve both pedagogical and curricular reform. Gains from the project have included a jump in Calculus I pass rate, greater student engagement, greater instructor satisfaction, a shift toward active learning pedagogies, and the emergence of a strong collaborative teaching community. This paper examines the effects of the reform on student retention. Since the curricular reform involved pruning some content and altering course outcomes, which could conceivably have negative downstream impacts, we report on …