The Dana Center’s Higher Education team provides services to support systemic and sustainable change in postsecondary education. We focus on the implementation of mathematics pathways through coordinated efforts across all levels of the higher education system: national, state, institutional, and classroom. We work to empower local leaders, build upon previous work, and establish respectful structures and processes to engage people in cycles of continuous improvement.
Our Value to You
Change in education is complex. Our decades of experience in K-12 and higher education administration, policy, student support services, and mathematics curriculum design and pedagogy informs our team approach to help you navigate through complexity.
We provide the greatest value to you when we work consistently with your team over time to establish and maintain the conditions needed for sustainable change. After an initial collaboration to jointly identify desired outcomes, we customize comprehensive supports and ongoing interactions needed to move you from your current context toward your goals.
Services We Offer
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Professional Learning
- We offer task force, team, and individual professional learning supports that are customized to meet participants where they are. We provide ongoing interactions (both virtual and face-to-face) that build capacity and sustainability.
- We advocate for active collaboration in all of our work with task forces and with classroom faculty. We walk the talk during our professional learning sessions by providing facilitated experiences in which the participants do the work and leave with action steps, tools, and resources needed to engage in continuous improvement.
- Learn about our Professional Learning offerings in more detail.
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Consultation, Data Gathering, and Analysis
- Consultation includes engaging in initial planning with a small team of our higher education staff. We act as a critical, highly experienced friend to help identify needs and plan interventions that will be carried out either by you or with our support.
- We have identified key indicators that can create a sense of urgency for change among stakeholders. We provide tools for data gathering and analysis that will identify your baseline and can be used as a starting point for cycles of continuous improvement.
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Convene Experts from the Field
- We bring together thought leaders from around the country to engage in structured, data-informed conversations in order to create synergy and shine a spotlight on a specific issue. Topics for such convenings have included “equity in mathematics,” “rigor in mathematics pathways,” and “increasing statistics pathway participation.”
- We also collaborate with other organizations around a common goal. One example is the Core Principles for Transforming Remediation Within a Comprehensive Student Success Strategy, issued by Achieving the Dream, American Association of Community Colleges, The Charles A. Dana Center, Education Commission of the States, and Jobs for the Future.
Explore our professional learning offerings
Our expertise is gained from experience. Our professional learning sessions support your continuous improvement goals.
Learn MoreHow We Work
At the state or regional level, we work with an organizing body such as a commissioner’s office, student success center, and/or math task force to develop the policy and practice conditions for statewide implementation and scale. Activities include, but are not limited to:
- The creation of working groups to develop student learning outcomes for mathematics pathways courses;
- Convening faculty, advisors, and institutional leaders to create institutional implementation plans based on common recommendations;
- Convening a transfer and applicability working group;
- Surveying non-mathematics faculty on mathematics competency needs within programs of study, and
- Coordinating activities with initiatives focused on developmental mathematics such as co-requisite and placement reforms.
Across these activities, we provide a framework for states, systems, or regions that includes deliverables, suggested timelines, and processes for convening stakeholders and maintaining momentum toward project goals. These processes are detailed but intentionally flexible and adaptable to your own context.
Read An Example of Our Work
The Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) closely supported statewide efforts to develop and implement math pathways in Arkansas.
Read NowGet in Touch
We collaborate with state districts and teachers to develop innovative curricular, resources, and professional development.