This blog post for the National Association of System Heads describes the University System of Maryland’s statewide collaboration among five public universities and seven community colleges to redesign college-level mathematics pathways.

The Program of Study Brief series examines what constitutes relevant math for various majors, including nursing, communications, criminal justice, and social work. All of these briefs can also be found under our Files section.

This resource can assist state- and/or institutional-level working groups to define and develop effective communication and engagement strategies while examining effective messaging related to mathematics pathways.

A common concern among those considering mathematics pathways is the degree to which students who begin their college-level work in non-STEM pathways might be hindered if they switch to a STEM major. This brief summarizes numerous studies examining the prevalence of students who changed majors from non-STEM to STEM fields and provides recommendations for serving those students.

This brief, written in collaboration with the Education Commission of the States, describes three math pathways models, lays out the evidence for their effectiveness, and gives recommendations for the effective implementation of math pathways.

Nancy Shapiro, associate vice chancellor for education and outreach for the University System of Maryland, describes Maryland’s math pathways initiative, how the reform’s leaders took advantage of a First in the World grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and lessons learned from the work.

[UPDATED 2019] Mathematics pathways are designed to address three barriers to student learning and success: inappropriate placement, misaligned content and long course sequences. This brief summarizes the research on these barriers and presents evidence that well-designed mathematics pathways lead to increased student success.