Education Commons^™

Stem Opportunities - High School 2019, Huey-Xian Kelly Wong, Madeleine Rauhauser, Annie Morgan Nelson

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

This publication details the lesson plan for the “Opportunities in STEM” club for the summer of 2019. This club began out of a desire to educate high school students about the opportunities and careers available in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Often, students feel that the prospect of entering a STEM field is daunting and out of their grasp. What it means to be a scientist is often unclear, and students never consider opportunities out of the fear of the unknown, particularly when science is associated with complexity and difficulty. This lesson plan integrates experiments with a wealth …

Comparing Nebraskan And Finnish Education Policy And Its Impacts On Mathematics Teaching, Elizabeth Tyler

Honors Theses

For two decades, Finland has been in the education spotlight as they consistently receive high international exam scores while spending less money, less time teaching, and putting students through fewer hours of school. This study aims to investigate the related policy that may help explain these seemingly paradoxical findings in the education sector. More specifically, this study examines how related policy impacts math teachers in their day to day work. This research includes an extensive literature review that explores several facets of the education system in both Nebraska and Finland in order to better understand existing policies. This background is …

Course Portfolio For Math 872: Topology Ii, Alex Zupan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In this course portfolio, I explore tactics for engaging a group of beginning mathematics graduate students taking the second semester of the first-year sequence in topology. Course objectives include computing algebraic invariants of topological spaces, understanding the Galois correspondence between covering spaces and fundamental groups, and using a range of invariants to distinguish spaces. My main instructional tools include a series of three "Activities" tailored to each student, a project involving computing invariants with the program SnapPy and using homology of covering spaces to distinguish 3-dimensional knots, and individual student board work during class periods. The activities served as benchmarks …

Sliding Into An Equitable Lesson, Kelley E. Buchheister 6872059, Christa Jackson, Cynthia E. Taylor

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

A kindergarten teacher uses Gutierrez's four dimensions of equity to design and facilitate geometry instruction.

Equitable instruction is reflected in how students are positioned in the classroom and how their identities evolve through purposeful interactions that value and recognize the intellectual capacity of each student (Gutiérrez 2013; Lemons-Smith 2008). These integral interactions occur when teachers and students exchange problem-solving strategies, discuss relations among various mathematical representations, and listen to the viewpoints of others (NCTM 2000; 2014).

Math 314: Linear Algebra-A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Xavier Pérez-Giménez

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention with this portfolio is to present my approach to teaching Math 314. This is a linear algebra course for senior-year undergraduate students in different STEM programs. The course serves as a transition from computational courses, such as calculus, to more theoretical ones, and exposes students, possibly for the first time, to abstract mathematical objects (such as general vector spaces) and simple proofs. Several lecture-based strategies are discussed and evaluated in connection with student learning outcomes. I also present samples of course materials and student work.