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Full-Text Articles in Education

Classroom Manipulative To Engage Students In Mathematical Modeling Of Disease Spread: 1 + 1 = Achoo!, H. Gaff, M. Lyons, G. Watson Jan 2011

Classroom Manipulative To Engage Students In Mathematical Modeling Of Disease Spread: 1 + 1 = Achoo!, H. Gaff, M. Lyons, G. Watson

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Infectious diseases ranging from the common cold to cholera affect our society physically, emotionally, ecologically, and economically. Yet despite their importance and impact, there remains a lack of effective teaching materials for epidemiology and disease ecology in K-12, undergraduate, and graduate curricula [2]. To address this deficit, we've developed a classroom lesson with three instructional goals: (1) Familiarize students on basic concepts of infectious disease ecology; (2) Introduce students to a classic compartmental model and its applications in epidemiology; (3) Demonstrate the application and importance of mathematical modeling as a tool in biology. The instructional strategy uses a game-based mathematical …


"Beyond Bio2010: Celebration And Opportunities" At The Intersection Of Mathematics And Biology, John R. Jungck, Holly D. Gaff, Adam P. Fagen, Jay B. Labov Oct 2010

"Beyond Bio2010: Celebration And Opportunities" At The Intersection Of Mathematics And Biology, John R. Jungck, Holly D. Gaff, Adam P. Fagen, Jay B. Labov

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

With this special edition of CBE-LSE, which focuses on connections between and integration of the biological and mathematical sciences, it is especially fitting that we report on an important symposium, Beyond BIO2010: Celebration and Opportunities,1 which was held at the National Acad- emy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C. on May 21–22, 2010. This symposium was organized to assess what progress has been made in addressing the challenges and recommendations in the National Research Council’s (NRC) report: BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists (NRC, 2003a). Most of the presen- tations and posters at this event emphasized the increasing …


Mathematical Manipulative Models: In Defense Of "Beanbag Biology", John R. Jungck, Holly Gaff, Anton E. Weisstein Oct 2010

Mathematical Manipulative Models: In Defense Of "Beanbag Biology", John R. Jungck, Holly Gaff, Anton E. Weisstein

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Mathematical manipulative models have had a long history of influence in biological research and in secondary school education, but they are frequently neglected in undergraduate biology education. By linking mathematical manipulative models in a four-step process-1) use of physical manipulatives, 2) interactive exploration of computer simulations, 3) derivation of mathematical relationships from core principles, and 4) analysis of real data sets-we demonstrate a process that we have shared in biological faculty development workshops led by staff from the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium over the past 24 yr. We built this approach based upon a broad survey of literature in mathematical educational …