Title: Using Primary Sources to Improve Classroom Climate and Promote Shared Responsibility

Speaker(s): Spencer Bagley, Anil Venkatesh

Abstract: To address a deteriorating classroom climate at the midpoint of a two-semester upper-division mathematics course sequence, we employed a novel instructor-led intervention: reading a mathematics education manuscript together with students as an invitation to legitimate peripheral participation in scholarly reflection on teaching and learning. This intervention resolved many student complaints about the structure and level of the course, and the manuscript’s discussion of the didactical contract promoted the idea of shared responsibility. We propose that reading mathematics education literature with students can be an effective tool for improving the climate of the classroom, and that using the didactical contract in this way can particularly help students claim their share of responsibility for their own learning.