The Developmental Mathematics Collection: Aggregating Regional Collections of Exemplary Practices, Tools and Resources

The Developmental Mathematics Collection, a new NSDL project, focuses on exemplary teaching practices and learning activities for college and university students in developmental mathematics courses (prerequisite to collegiate credit).

In addition to addressing a new area of emphasis within the MathDL pathway, the DMC project features a new approach to collection management and sustainability. Regional faculty teams are collecting exemplary practices, tools and resources used by their faculty; these compendiums combine open contributions of resources and experiences by faculty with editorial processes to categorize contributions in terms of the evidence base on their use. The regional collections are intended to promote community ownership and sustainability at the local level; the aggregation and integration are intended to ‘raise the bar’ for local teaching practices and provide a network infrastructure to sustain a national collection.

The initial team consists of faculty from six San Diego community colleges collaborating in a course transformation program funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, in partnership with the state-wide Basic Skills Initiative in the California Community Colleges. Two additional regional networks for course redesign in developmental math started in Fall 2009, in the San Francisco region and the Los Angeles Community College District.