Innovative Instructional & Public Impact Opportunity
Wolverine Pathways seeks math instructors to design and teach innovative in-person courses to high school seniors from July 10, 2023 – August 4, 2023. The goal is to introduce students to how creative, far-reaching and rich the world of math can be. A few examples of topics a class could cover are:
- An introduction to Number Theory and its applications to code-breaking
- Building the theory of probability via exploring how to win at popular casino games
- Constructing different surfaces out of paper, food items or a 3D printer and a language to characterize them
Your class could cover some variant of one of the topics above, or something entirely different. We are looking for ideas that make math tangible and relatable, while inspiring our students to problem-solve, make mistakes and try new things. Instructors earn a stipend of $5,000 for their service.
About Wolverine Pathways
Wolverine Pathways (WP) is a free University of Michigan program that serves students and schools in Ypsilanti, Detroit, and Southfield as part of the University’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We provide year-round, educational enrichment, college readiness programming, and career exposure to middle and high school scholars in order to increase these young people’s probability of admission to the most selective colleges in the U.S., including the University of Michigan. All scholars who successfully complete Pathways and gain admittance to UM Ann Arbor or Dearborn receive a four-year, full tuition scholarship. In the past four years, fifty four percent of our graduates have been admitted to UM-Ann Arbor, and over 250 WP graduates have successfully matriculated to both campuses.
About Summer Institute
Each summer, WP fields a series of four-week pre-college courses for our rising high school seniors which will prepare them for the college classroom. Each course is led by an instructor with a demonstrated ability to support 20 to 25 scholars in developing the academic skills, dispositions, and practices necessary for success in future college courses. Since most Wolverine Pathways scholars admitted to U-M Ann Arbor decide to come, these courses are also powerful pipelines for The College and individual departments seeking a more diverse cohort of majors.
This year’s Summer Institute will be held from July 10, 2023 – August 4, 2023.
Developing a Pre-College Course
Wolverine Pathways welcomes applications from instructors across the liberal arts and sciences who are interested in providing future college students a preview of academic life at the University of Michigan. This opportunity is ideal for instructors who want to be pedagogically creative and open up their fields of study to bright, ambitious young scholars. A great sample of a Summer Institute course syllabus can be found here for your reference.
Details:
- A stipend of $5,000 for course preparation, four weeks of instruction (i.e., 24-30 hours of in-person classroom instruction), weekly office hours, and written summative evaluations for each student.
- An instructional assistant (advanced undergraduate or graduate student) to support classroom instruction and facilitate other student activities.
- Instructors can nominate an advanced undergraduate student with the requisite skills and background to apply for our summer staff position..
Expectations:
- The course brings math to life in a fresh and exciting way not seen in a typical high school curriculum.
- Course content and delivery is designed for learners who are ready to be intellectually challenged, but might not have all the building blocks of a more experienced student. Wolverine Pathways will work with you to develop appropriate pedagogical scaffolding as necessary.
- Problem sets, or mini projects are designed to enhance a student’s college preparedness in STEM by building up their capacity to grapple with unfamiliar problems, while synthesizing different ideas, being persistent and thinking outside the box.
- The course is run in an interactive format where students are given ample opportunity to engage with the material in a hands-on manner.
- Outside of class work is engaging, exploratory, and supplements in-class learning. For each class meeting, students should receive at least an hour and a half worth of problem sets or supplemental material that they will work on outside of class and during office hours.
- At the end of the term, instructors provide each student with a formal written evaluation of their growth and recommendations for further pre-college preparation and mathematical exploration.
Application Requirements
Proposals will be evaluated on the creativity of the offering and the likelihood of hooking and actively engaging high school students of a demographically and culturally diverse student population. Proposals will also be evaluated on the instructor’s commitment and preparation to build up students’ creative thinking, logical reasoning, mathematical collaboration and problem solving skills.
Please submit in a single PDF:
- Course title and description (300 words)
- A statement that addresses: a. Your commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom b. Pedagogical adjustments you would make for high school learners c. The academic and/or disciplinary skills students will develop through your course
- A Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- The name and contact of a professional reference who has witnessed you teach or otherwise has robust knowledge of your instructional skill or capacity
Please submit application materials through this link by January 31, 2023
Notifications will occur by February 28, 2023
Please contact Wolverine Pathways Assistant Director, Maurice Traylor with any questions at traylorm@umich.edu
