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In this poster we illustrate how stewardship, a particular kind of leadership, in the complex system of mathematics instructional development requires decentering and interconnecting. This theory development for professional growth of faculty agents for change expands on earlier work describing how instructional practices used by providers of teaching-focused professional development in seminars about teaching (for graduate students) could be beneficial both for learning high-powered approaches to teaching of undergraduate mathematics and for building a foundation for future change-agent work. Here we move one level up and present an analogous argument about practices for stewards who are teaching about teaching about teaching. The poster illustrates the multilevel system with an expanded model that incorporates learning objectives for provider professional learning and the instructional practices of such professional learning in ways that showcase (and teach about) decentering and interconnecting. 

Making progress in justice, equity, and diversity in post-secondary teaching and learning requires systemic change. The development of novice instructor professional knowledge is a critical subsystem of the undergraduate mathematics education system. Novices play key roles in instruction and have the potential to play key roles in change efforts later in their careers. Yet,there is little in the way of theory to support research and development in this area. In other fields, professional development that engages novices in building skill at self-sustaining, generative change as professionals is the ground in which agency for change is seeded and nurtured. We describe two dimensions of professional skills for interacting with ideas and people: decentering and interconnecting. In this report, we explore and illustrate the role of these dimensions in professional development for novice college mathematics instructors.