University of Houston-Downtown

In order to sum things up, we asked these college algebra reformers what efforts, if any, they had made to try to disseminate their teaching methods. Intrinsic to that question was our knowledge of the measure of success they had in convincing their peers outside UHD to adopt their methods. One reformer answered:

We went to conferences and talked to people about our method. We were traveling salesmen for a while. When we talked to people and they got interested, they wanted to see more, wanted to know more about it, and asked us to give them a workshop. First we gave one workshop here, just to introduce them to our method. Then we made presentations at conferences and workshops. A few other instructors are using our text, not many, but it has been used off campus--at several schools, actually.

In the early 90s, because UHD was selected as one of six national sites to host IMTP summer workshops, these three math department faculty members were often on the workshop circuit, promoting mathematics reform. Later, they became authors of a college algebra text, and much of their dissemination efforts were made in the context attempting to market that text. Currently the college algebra text is being used at a few other institutions.