Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

The Influence Of Previous Subject Experience On Interactions During Peer Instruction In An Introductory Physics Course: A Mixed Methods Analysis, Judy A. Vondruska

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over the past decade, peer instruction and the introduction of student response systems has provided a means of improving student engagement and achievement in large-lecture settings. While the nature of the student discourse occurring during peer instruction is less understood, existing studies have shown student ideas about the subject, extraneous cues, and confidence level appear to matter in the student-student discourse. Using a mixed methods research design, this study examined the influence of previous subject experience on peer instruction in an introductory, one-semester Survey of Physics course. Quantitative results indicated students in discussion pairs where both had previous subject experience …

Oer Awareness, Advocacy, And Adoption: An Institutional Approach, Jaya Kannan, Chelsea Stone, Zachariah Claybaugh

Librarian Publications

Sacred Heart University’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Task Force, an entity composed of the Office of the Provost, the Office of Digital Learning (ODL), Sacred Heart University Library, and faculty from across campus, has worked for the past two years to integrate OER into the educational culture of the university. To accomplish this we’ve employed a process that focuses on building awareness, identifying campus units for building strategic partnerships, assisting faculty in locating relevant resources, and, through pilot programs, onboarding OER into courses for trial.

A Path Analysis Exploration Of Teacher’S Effect, Self-Efficacy, Demographic Factors, And Attitudes Toward Mathematics Among College Students Attending S Minority Serving Institution In Face-To-Face And Hybrid Mathematics Courses, Nelson De La Rosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Graduation rates in colleges and universities have not kept up with the increase in enrollment. Lack of mathematics competence is a factor that impairs students from completing higher education studies. This problem is even more pervasive in minority groups. The existing body of research on mathematics education have not favored emerging minority populations in terms of addressing their needs for academic program completion across mode of instruction.

The study analyzed the relationship between type of instruction and the factors underlying students’ attitudes toward mathematics. Further, this study examined the effect of factors underlying the constructs of teacher’s effect and self-efficacy …

Evaluating High School Biology Modeling Instruction In South Florida: A Comparative Case Study, Feng Li

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation, with a collected papers approach, focused on evaluating the implementation of MI curriculum in high school Biology I classes in south Florida. The dissertation included the development and validation of the Biology Identity and Persistence Survey (BIPS), the connection of instructors’ teaching practices with students’ biology identities, evolution identities, and career aspirations, and the connection of instructors’ teaching practice with students’ conceptual understanding in evolution. In the first part of the dissertation study, the BIPS was validated through expert review and student cognitive interviews for its face and content validity. Confirmatory factor analysis addressed the construct validity of …

Eği̇ti̇m Si̇stemi̇mi̇z Ve 21. Yüzyil Hayali̇mi̇z: 2045 Hedeflerine İlerlerken, Türkiye Için Stem Odaklı Ekonomik Bir Yol Haritası, Mehmet Aydeniz

Theory and Practice in Teacher Education Publications and Other Works

Bilimsel ve teknolojik gelişmeler, yeni sanayilerin oluşmasında, ülkelerin askeri savunma kapasitelerini artırmada, mevcut sanayilerde üretkenliği tetiklemekte, hayat kalitesinin yükselmesinde ve eğitimin erişebilirliğinde önemli bir rol oynamaya devam etmektedir. Dolayısıyla bir Ülkenin ekonomik gelişimi, bilimsel çalışma yapabilme kapasitesine, teknolojisinin gelişimine, girişimcilik ortamı ve inovasyon yapabilme kapasitesine bağlıdır.

Ekonomiye önemli katkıları olan bilimin ve teknolojinin gelişmesi, STEM alanlarında gerekli ön bilgi ve becerilere sahip, problemlere yaratıcı bir bakışla yaklaşabilen, özgür düşünebilen, sorgulayan, inovatif çözüm üretebilen, dayanışmayı önemseyen bir nesil yetiştirebilen okulların varlığına bağlıdır.

Peki Türk Eğitim Sistemi, Ülkemizin ekonomik yarışabilirlik potansiyelini yükseltecek, savunma kapasitesini artıracak, bölgesel liderliğinin bir adım öne çıkmasını sağlayacak …

The Challenge: Magazine For The Center For Gifted Studies (No. 43, Fall 2017), Center For Gifted Studies, Tracy Inman, Editor

Gifted Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond The City Lights: A Multiple-Case Study Of Successful, Experienced Secondary Science Teachers In Rural Schools, Beverly R. Devore-Wedding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recruitment and retention concerns for teachers, particularly in rural school districts and in science, fill the daily news and research literature. The shortage of STEM workers is also another concern as well. Then why do nationally recognized secondary science teachers remain in rural schools with lower salaries, increased responsibilities beyond teaching content, and multi-preparations, stay in those schools? How do they overcome challenges in their schools?

This multiple case study focuses on Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) awardees who have taught secondary science in rural school districts 10 years or more. Eight rural PAEMST high …

Stem Storytelling: Using Picture Books To Integrate Mathematics - "Who Lives Here?", Lindsey Herlehy, Karen Togliatti

Publications & Research

This series of activities invites students to explore animals and their habitats, classify “animal” figures by habitat, sort, represent, and analyze data. In the first activity, the picture book Listen to Our World by Bill Martin, Jr. and Michael Sampson will be used to discuss eleven different animals and their habitats. Questioning strategies will focus on student comprehension and inferential reasoning skills related to why each animal lives in a particular type of habitat. This book is utilized at all grade levels to introduce the subsequent activity.

The grade-level activities that follow integrate students’ knowledge of animals and their habitats …

Increasing Stem Competence In Urban, High Poverty Elementary School Populations, Sueanne Mckinney, Cynthia Tomovic, Melva Grant, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Enhancing STEM competence (e.g., interests, knowledge, skills, and dispositions) among urban, high poverty, elementary school populations in the United States (U.S.) is and remains a growing national concern, especially since Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) competence is and will continue to be a necessary requisite for gainful employment in the future, according to workforce development experts. In an attempt to address this gap, many urban elementary schools have begun to offer STEM-related programs to increase STEM learning at an early age. STEM competence (interest, knowledge, skills, and dispositions), however, remains low. This paper results in a matrix used to …

A Case Of Fragmented High School Earth And Space Science Education In The Great Plains: Tracing Teacher Certification Policy To Students' Access, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Jia Lu

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

While U.S. high school students’ access to Earth and space science (ESS) varies widely from state to state, nationally ESS content is the most neglected area of science education and scientific literacy. States have been considering if they will formally adopt, or less formally adapt, the new national science education standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which have been carefully developed and articulated in conjunction with state educational leaders. However, there are many challenges with which states, school districts, and teachers must grapple in order to enact standards-aligned ESS science lessons. This study of one Great Plains state investigated …

Let's Get Physical! Teaching Mathematics Through The Lens Of Physics, Peggy Bertrand Ph.D., Lauren Jeneva Clark Ph.D.

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Mathematics

In 2017, a professional development project, Let's Get Physical! Teaching Mathematics through the Lens of Physics, was funded by a Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) grant, and was hosted by the University of Tennessee Department of Mathematics. These proceedings contain physics-based secondary mathematics lessons that guided this project. For example, in one lesson, tracking the behavior of live insects helps students learn about displacement, velocity, geometry, and measurement. In another, dropping coffee filters helps students learn about drag, logarithms, and graphical methods. Lasers and lenses can be used to teach reflection and refraction, and one …

The Challenge: Magazine For The Center For Gifted Studies (No. 42, Summer 2017), Center For Gifted Studies, Tracy Inman Editor

Gifted Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

The Resolved And Unresolved Conjectures Of R.D. Carmichael, Brian D. Beasley

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Even before heading to Princeton University to work on his doctoral degree, Robert Daniel Carmichael started influencing the path of number theory in the 20th century. From his study of Euler's totient function to his discovery of the first absolute pseudoprime, he set the stage for years of productive research. This talk will present a brief overview of Carmichael's life, including his breadth of mathematical interests and his service on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It will focus mainly on his two most famous conjectures- which one has been settled, and which one remains open to this day?

"Big Idea" Reflection Assignments For Learning And Valuing Mathematics, Jeremy Case, Mark Colgan

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

While participating in a Faculty Learning Community, we explored the "big questions" we wanted our students to take away from our mathematics courses. We called these questions the Big Ideas of the course and developed a Big Ideas Reflection Assignment, which we continue to assign at the end of each of our courses. Students are able to demonstrate understanding and application of their learning as well as their values and appreciation of mathematics. The assignment encourages students to move beyond a focus on technique and symbolic manipulations towards a broader and more holistic approach, including making connections between their learning …

Using Real-World Team Projects: A Pedagogical Framework, Mike Leih

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

The use of team projects in a program capstone course for computer science or information systems majors has been a popular method for reinforcing and assessing program learning objectives for students in their final semester. Using real-world group projects as a learning activity is an excellent pedagogical approach in helping students develop critical thinking, team work, real-world problem solving, and communication skills. However, real-world group projects also provide many challenges to both the instructor and students alike. Instructors or students must find real-world projects appropriate for the learning objectives in the course. Instructors must determine how to provide teams with …

Variations On The Calculus Sequence, Christopher Micklewright

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Many institutions have embraced a standard format for the Calculus sequence, comprising three four-credit courses covering a fairly consistent set of topics. While there is much to recommend this approach, it still leaves some fantastic concepts rushed or untouched, and it can be argued that it demands too much of students with weaker backgrounds. As such, some schools have experimented with variations on the standard format. In this talk, I will present the model that my institution currently uses, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of our particular approach. I will also suggest ideas, developed in conversation with other ACMS members …

The Topology Of Harry Potter: Exploring Higher Dimensions In Young Adult Fantasy Literature, Sarah Klanderman, Alexa Schut, Dave Klanderman, William Boerman-Cornell

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

As one of the most beloved series in children’s literature today, the Harry Potter books excite students of all ages with the adventures of living in a magical world. Magical objects (e.g., bottom-less handbags, the Knight Bus, time turners, and moving portraits) can inspire generalizations to mathematical concepts that would be relevant in an undergraduate geometry or topology course. Intuitive explanations for some of the magical objects connect to abstract mathematical ideas. We
offer a typology with a total of five categories, including Three Dimensions in Two Dimensions, Higher Dimensions in Three Dimensions, Two and Three Dimensional Movement, Higher Dimensional …

Ten Mathematicians Who Recognized God's Hand In Their Work (Part 2), Dale Mcintyre

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) once observed that "Whoever is moved by faith to assent to [the Christian religion], is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience." Evidently Hume's cynical pronouncement did not apply to Descartes, Newton, Riemann, and other profound thinkers who believed God had commissioned and equipped them to glorify Him in their pursuit of truth through mathematics - And based on their extraordinary achievements the principles of their understanding do not appear …

The Set Of Zero Divisors Of A Factor Ring, Jesús Jiménez

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Let A be a ring and a an ideal of A. In this paper we show how to construct factor rings A/ a and a finite set of ideals a1, a2, ... , ak, of A/a, such that: each ideal aj is contained in the set of zero divisors of A/a, the factor ring A/a is a direct sum of these ideals, and each ideal aj is a ring with unity when endowed with addition and multiplication modulo a. Explicit examples are given when A is the ring of integers, Gaussian integers or the ring of polynomials over a field.

The Daily Question: Building Student Trust And Interest In Undergraduate Introductory Probability And Statistics Courses, Matthew A. Hawks

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Introducing probability or statistics to disinterested undergraduate students is challenging. Adding faith in such a classroom at a secular institution only increases the complexity. We share an unobtrusive way to build trust with students, creating a medium to both naturally share your faith and have your students look forward to attending each class. The context is the United States Naval Academy, a four-year undergraduate institution with an emphasis on leader development. In addition to a calculus sequence, Humanities majors enroll in Probability with Naval Applications or Introductory Statistics. These sophomores or juniors are split between those who have no intention …

Finding Meaning In Calculus (And Life), Doug Phillippy

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

A 2015 publication of the Mathematical Association of America (Insights and Recommendations from the MAA National Study of College Calculus) noted that "students taking college calculus exhibited a reduction in positive attitude toward mathematics, which can affect their career aspira

Axioms: Mathematical And Spiritual: What Says The Parable?, Melvin Royer

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Relational structure A is compact provided for any structure Jffi of the same signature, if every finite substructure of Jffi has a homomorphism to A then so does Jffi. The Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) for A is the computational problem of determining whether finite structures have homomorphisms into A. We explore a connection between the hierarchy of logical axioms and the complexity hierarchy of CSPs: It appears that the complexity of CSP for A corresponds to the strength of the axiom "A is compact". At the top, the statement "K3 is compacts" is logically equivalent to the compactness theorem. Thus …

Cultivating Mathematical Affections Through Engagement In Service-Learning, Josh Wilkerson

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Why should students value mathematics? While extensive research exists on developing the cognitive ability of students, very little research has examined how to cultivate the affections of students for mathematics. The phrase "mathematical affections" is a play on the affective domain of learning as well as on the general notion of care towards something. Mathematical affections are more than a respect for the utility of the subject; the term is much broader and includes aesthetic features as well as habits of mind and attitude. This paper will analyze the findings from a research project exploring the impact of service

Blended Courses Across The Curriculum: What Works And What Does Not, Ryan Botts, Lori Carter, Catherine Crockett

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Recent hype around online and blended courses touts the benefits of immediate student feedback, flexible pace, adaptive learning, and better utility of classroom space. Here we aim to summarize the results of a 3-year pilot study using blended courses across the quantitative science curriculum (Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science), in both upper and lower division, major and GE courses. We present findings on student attitudes towards this format, most helpful course components, time on task, progress on learning outcomes and faculty perspectives. This summary can be used to inform best practices in hybrid design, implementation and faculty expectations in the …

A Pre-Calculus Controversy: Infinitesimals And Why They Matter, Karl-Dieter Crisman

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

In teaching calculus, it is not uncommon to mention the controversy over the role of infinitesimals with Newton's and Leibniz' calculus, including Berkeley's objections. In a history of mathematics course, it is a required topic! But rancor over infinitesimals and their role in mathematics predates calculus- so much so that a popular new book is dedicated to this topic. In this talk, I will discuss not just the relevant controversies between Cavalieri and the Je

Start A Math Teacher Circle: Connect K-12 Teachers With Engaging, Approachable, And Meaningful Mahtematical Problems, Thomas Clark, Mike Janssen, Amanda Harsy, Dave Klanderman, Mandi Maxwell, Sharon Robbert

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

Many K-12 math teachers are not ready to teach from a conceptual and inquiry-oriented per

Reading Journals: Preview Assignments That Promote Student Engagement, Productive Struggle, And Ultimate Success In Undergraduate Mathematics Courses, Sarah Nelson

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

We spend lots of time searching for the best textbook for students. We want our students to have a reliable and useful resource to reference, as needed. We even ask them to read over certain material before classes. Often, however, we fail to guide our students in how to read the text productively. Incorporating reading journals into your classes is an excellent way to simultaneously develop your students' ability to read mathematical text and capitalize on what the students already have to offer. In this presentation, we will look at how reading journals motivate students in a variety of mathematics …

Mentoring As A Statistical Educator In A Christian College, L. Marlin Eby

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

In this paper, I present principles based on more than thirty years of intentional mentoring as a statistical educator in a Christian college. I believe this mentoring has been enhanced due to the setting- a Christian college, and the discipline - statistics. I discuss distinctives of the Christian college setting that positively impact mentoring in any discipline with respect to the mentor, the mentee, and the pervading campus atmosphere. I focus on mentoring as a statistical educator by specifically considering the following: attracting students to the discipline of statistics, preparing students for careers using statistics, and preparing students for graduate …

Developing The Underutilized Mathematical Strengths Of Students, Patrick Eggleton

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2017

This session is intended for presenting the findings from a Spring 2017 research study conducted at Taylor University regarding influences that contribute to a student's disposition toward mathematics. In the foundation level mathematics course taught for non-majors at Taylor, students are asked to share a reflection on their past mathematical experiences. Analysis of these reflections shows general themes regarding the influences, both good and bad, that have contributed to how these students approach mathematics. We would like to use this information as well as related studies to help instructors of mathematics develop positive dispositions toward mathematics in their students.

Relationships Between Mathematics Teacher Preparation And Graduates' Analyses Of Classroom Teaching, James Hiebert, Emily Miller, Dawn Berk

Mathematics Faculty Publications

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the relationships between mathematics teacher preparation and graduates’ analyses of classroom teaching. Fifty three graduates from an elementary teacher preparation program completed 4 video-based, analysis-of-teaching tasks in the semester before graduation and then in each of the 3 summers following graduation. Participants performed significantly better on the 3 tasks focused on mathematics topics studied in the program than on the task focused on a mathematics topic not studied in the program. After checking several alternative hypotheses, we conclude that a likely explanation for the performance differences is the mathematical knowledge for …