A rich combination of classroom and learning system data will enhance and measure the effectiveness of new introductory statistics courseware.

Portland, Oregon / January 26, 2023 – Lumen Learning, a leading provider of higher education teaching and learning materials focused on improving student outcomes and removing race and income as predictors of student success, today announced a collaboration with Digital Promise to provide independent implementation and efficacy research for Lumen’s new Introduction to Statistics courseware. The courseware is designed for a critical gateway course with the highest dropout and failure rates among underserved and minority students. 

Digital Promise is a global nonprofit organization that shapes the future of learning and advances equitable education systems by bringing together solutions across research, practice, and technology. Its initiatives have impacted over 4.4 million students and 180,000 teachers across 173 districts and in 27 countries to date.

With funding from a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digital Promise will be studying the implementation and efficacy of the new introductory statistics courseware developed by Lumen. Researchers will investigate teaching practices, student experiences, and student outcomes in introductory statistics classrooms using a combination of classroom observations, instructor questionnaires, student interviews and surveys, a statistics concepts assessment, and course grade data. Digital Promise’s analyses will highlight course experiences and outcomes specifically for Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and low-income students. Lumen will simultaneously conduct its own internal research to contribute to the company’s ongoing goal of improving the courseware experience for both students and faculty. 

Digital Promise’s first data collection in statistics classes not using Lumen’s courseware began earlier this academic year. Implementation research in classrooms using the new courseware commenced this spring, 2023. Current research partners include SUNY Empire State College, Tompkins Cortland Community College, SUNY Old Westbury and Onondaga Community College with the intention to expand to additional institutions in the fall of 2023.

“Mathematics has been a challenge for our students, and our faculty is very interested in new technology and pedagogy that will help us increase success in our courses,” said Sophia Georgiakaki, mathematics professor at Tompkins Cortland Community College and lead of the college’s introductory statistics course redesign. “Our mathematics department in its entirety is committed to investigating ways that we can make a difference in students’ experience with mathematics at the college level.”

In April, Lumen was awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support its work in creating and implementing new courseware for Introduction to Statistics that focuses specifically on eliminating race and income as predictors of success for students. Lumen’s collaboration with Digital Promise complements Lumen’s courseware development grant by generating insights into how different instructor practices that occur outside of the courseware influence student engagement and learning within the courseware. The Digital Promise research will help Lumen identify where to focus the continuous improvement of its platform and content to best meet student and faculty needs over time. Lumen and Digital Promise are working closely together in an emerging collaborative design process that supports monitoring and tweaking as research is delivered.

Digital Promise will launch a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Fall 2024 to evaluate the impact of implementing Lumen’s Introduction to Statistics courseware with a set of supports to help faculty employ the teaching practices found to maximize the courseware’s effectiveness. The research aims to have a direct impact on how faculty adopt and teach, how students learn, and how institutions support educators in improving outcomes in gateway courses. 

“Collaborating with Digital Promise will allow us to assess student experience and outcomes in our Introduction to Statistics courseware with incredible rigor,” says David Wiley, Ph.D., co-founder and chief teaching and learning officer of Lumen Learning. “Digital Promise has unparalleled expertise in delivering insightful research results, ultimately enabling us to look at teaching practices in different ways to create equitable success for students.” 

Lumen has been on a mission to gain and use valuable insights to support the development of its Introduction to Statistics courseware and new platform. The company has established on-campus user student testing centers at Rockland Community College in New York and Santa Ana College in California to work directly with its target student demographic. Lumen has partnered with Howard University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Assessment (CETLA) faculty and staff who provide guidance and direction, and The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) to scale its courseware. Lumen also partnered with InScribe to integrate a digital community platform into its courseware to create spaces for students to find solutions, ask questions, and collaborate to better understand the content.

If you are a college statistics instructor who would like to learn more, or get involved in Digital Promise’s research cohort, check out the project website here.

 

 

About Lumen Learning

Since 2012, Lumen Learning has partnered with colleges and universities to support teaching and learning innovation with a focus on improving affordability, access, and student success.

Lumen Waymaker and OHM digital courseware provide evidence-based learning design and data-driven content improvements to increase learning and student engagement using open educational resources (OER).

Lumen Circles provide faculty professional development to build skills and advance teaching practices. Grounded in research about how to increase learning and student success and delivered through peer-based virtual learning groups, Lumen Circles provide a supportive setting for faculty to expand their capabilities for teaching in dynamic educational environments.

Over 500 institutions across the U.S. are using Lumen-supported digital courseware for in-person, online, and blended courses. Materials created by Lumen are published under Creative Commons Attribution licenses and contributed back to the education community. Learn more at lumenlearning.com, and visit our course catalog at lumenlearning.com/courses.

About Digital Promise

Digital Promise is a nonprofit organization that builds powerful networks and takes on grand challenges by working at the intersection of researchers, entrepreneurs, and educators. Our vision is that all people, at every stage of their lives, have access to learning experiences that help them acquire the knowledge and skills they need to thrive and continuously learn in an ever-changing world. For more information, visit the Digital Promise website and follow @digitalpromise for updates.

Press Contact:

RF|Binder

Jill Metzger

Phone: 212-994-7542

Email: jill.metzger@rfbinder.com