Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Dominant And Critical Mathematics: A Multi-Case Study Examining Mathematics Teachers’ Equitable Teaching Practices, Laura Zamudio

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the field of mathematics education, it is common for studies to use test scores to examine racial and socio-economic achievement gaps. The results of such studies have influenced mathematics teachers to address issues of equitable access and achievement as part of closing existing gaps (Gutiérrez & Ezekiel Dixon-Román, 2011). However, closing achievement gaps does not mean that equity has been addressed if marginalized students continue to express a cultural disconnect from the field of mathematics (Lubienski & Gutiérrez, 2008).

This qualitative multi-case study seeks to attend to these issues by exploring the understandings of equity and equitable teaching practices …

Supporting Prospective Teachers’ Development Of Relevant And Authentic Mathematics Stories, Eryn M. Stehr, Lindsay M. Keazer

Education Faculty Publications

Supporting prospective elementary teachers (PTs) to develop mathematics problems with contexts that reflect their students’ lives is a challenge that remains to be explored. We began this work by conducting collaborative action research to explore PTs’ development of mathematics problems that were relevant and authentic to PTs’ own lives. We engaged in iterative cycles of action research by asking PTs to write mathematics stories, followed by our review and discussion of the themes we saw and sharing selected examples with PTs during class discussions. Findings after three cycles of data collection suggest that PTs’ mathematics contexts became more story-like and …

Modeling Potential Energy Of The Gaussian Gun, Leslie Atkins Elliott, André Bolliou, Hanna Irving, Douglas Jackson

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Gaussian gun is an arrangement of magnets and ball bearings (pictured in Fig. 1) such that—when the leftmost ball is released—the rightmost ball is ejected at high speeds. The device has been described in several articles on energy education. The sudden appearance of kinetic energy offers a productive context for considering a range of challenging ideas: the often-counterintuitive relationship between force and potential energy, the escape velocity for attractive forces, why energy is required to break bonds, and why energy is released when bonds form. Beyond these ideas, it is also useful for motivating the representation of a potential …

Water A Precious Gift 2019.Pdf, Natasha Yates

Education Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Challenge: Magazine For The Center For Gifted Studies (No. 47, Fall 2019), Center For Gifted Studies, Tracy Inman Editor

Gifted Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

Documenting Undocumented Motives Influencing The Career Choice Of The First-Year Science And Math Student Teachers In Indonesia, Amirul Mukminin, Masbirorotni Masbirorotni, Lenny Marzulina, Dian Erlina, Akhmad Habibi, Fridiyanto Fridiyanto, Mia Aina, Nunung Fajaryani, Nurulanningsih Nurulanningsih

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The aim of this study was to investigate the motives that were instrumental in driving the first-year science and math student teachers to be a teacher at one public university in Sumatra, Indonesia. A questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. 378 participants completed questionnaires consisting of 318 females and 60 males while the interview data were collected from voluntary participants. The data of the fulfilled questionnaires were calculated as percentage of their whole results while the data of the interviews were carefully analysed by looking at the responses from all interviewees. Our results indicated that there …

Elementary School Student Development Of Stem Attitudes And Perceived Learning In A Stem Integrated Robotics Curriculum, Yu-Hui Ching, Dazhi Yang, Sasha Wang, Youngkyun Baek, Steve Swanson, Bhaskar Chittoori

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Robotics has been advocated as an emerging approach to engaging K-12 students in learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study examined the impacts of a project-based STEM integrated robotics curriculum on elementary school students’ attitudes toward STEM and perceived learning in an afterschool setting. Three elementary school teachers and 18 fourth to sixth graders participated in an eight-week-long program. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, and showed students’ attitudes toward math improved significantly at the end of the robotics curriculum. Three specific areas of learning were identified, including STEM content learning and connection, engagement and perseverance, …

Hands-On, Guided Inquiry Science Investigation And Science Vocabulary Acquisition In A Rural Elementary School, Jennifer Mulder

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

Much research has been done to show how inquiry science instruction and inquiry student investigation provide students with hands-on experiences to effectively learn science content in the classroom. Additionally, many methods to efficaciously teach students vocabulary has been thoroughly investigated. However, not much research has been done to study what effect hands-on, guided inquiry science investigation has on student content vocabulary acquisition. Within one rural classroom, fourth graders engaged in hands-on, guided inquiry investigation, and then vocabulary words were explicitly taught and discussed. After that, students practiced the vocabulary words in a variety of ways in pairs and as a …

Strategies That Promote Elementary Student Stem Engagement, Jennifer Bauer

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

Collaboration, creativity, persistence, and critical thinking are all skills encompassed when integrating STEM into today’s classrooms. Empowering students in STEM related areas is essential for students’ future success in the 21^st century and educators must prepare citizens for these types of creative skills (Cook & Bush, 2018). Integrating STEM disciplines through project-based learning and providing real-world situations to solve problems enhances student engagement and achievement in STEM concepts (Cook & Bush, 2018; Hall & Miro, 2016). The topic defined in this research plan focuses on instructional strategies that make STEM more meaningful to science curriculum, as well as engaging …

Eece 351 Teaching Science In The Elementary School, Line A. Saint-Hilaire

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Meeting The Vision Of The Ngss: Critical Factors Of Effective Science Teaching (Poster), Elizabeth B. Lewis, Lyrica L. Lucas, Amy Tankersley, Elizabeth Hasseler, Brandon Helding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Posters and Presentations

With new national science education standards, we must understand how to prepare science teachers capable of advancing reform initiatives. In a 3-year longitudinal study we adopted a multi-method approach to investigate beginning science teachers’ instructional practices. We analyzed transcripts, observed science lessons, and documented weeks of lessons. Using this large dataset we posed research questions about the use of NGSS scientific practices in teachers’ science lessons (Project #1) and classroom diversity as it relates to teachers’ use of inquiry (Project #2). In order to expand our coding capability of science teaching data for use in our structural equation modelling efforts …

Closing Banquet Eulogies, Russell Howell, C. Ray Rosentrater

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

A tribute to David Lay; A tribute to John Roe

From Perfect Shuffles To Landau's Function, Brian D. Beasley

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

If we view a given shuffle of a deck of cards as a permutation, then repeatedly applying this same shuffle will eventually return the deck to its original order. In general, how many steps will that take? What happens in the case of so-called perfect shuffles? What type of shuffle will require the greatest number of applications before restoring the original deck? This talk will address those questions and provide a brief history of the work of Edmund Landau on the maximal order of a permutation in the symmetric group on n objects. It will also note some recent progress …

Developing Mathematicians: The Benefits Of Weaving Spiritual And Disciplinary Discipleship, Patrick Eggleton

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Part of the goal of discipleship at the Christian university is for faith development to seep into the hearts of the students. Similarly, the goal of the development of future mathematicians is for the mathematical proficiencies, the practices like problem solving and analytical reasoning that permeate each of the courses, to seep into the hearts of our majors. This presentation shares how the weaving of our spiritual and disciplinary discipleship efforts benefits the faith development of our students while also helping them to think like a mathematician.

The Applicability Of Mathematics And The Naturalist Die, Ricardo J. Cordero-Soto

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Philosopher and Christian apologist William Lane Craig has proposed a valid deductive argument for God’s existence that is rooted in the applicability of mathematics to the physical universe. This argument was presented by Craig during a debate with philosopher and atheist Alex Rosenberg. During the debate, Rosenberg presented a rebuttal to the soundness of this argument by appealing to chance as an explanation to the applicability of mathematics to the physical universe. In this talk, the presenter will discuss how the naturalist die is unable to produce “chance application” of mathematics while defending the soundness of the argument in light …

Analyzing The Impact Of Active Learning In General Education Mathematics Courses, Amanda Harsy, Marie Meyer, Michael Smith, Brittany Stephenson

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

This talk shares the preliminary results of a study that explores the general perceptions and attitudes of students in general education mathematics courses taught using primarily active learning- based methods (like group work, projects, and discovery learning), and compares them with those enrolled in a general education mathematics course taught in a more traditional and lecture-based method. We present an analysis of survey data collected throughout the semester, which explores the disposition and mindset of students, their mathematical confidence and anxiety, and perceptions of pedagogical methods used for the teaching of mathematics. We also explored how these perceptions and dispositions …

Faith, Mathematics, And Science: The Priority Of Scripture In The Pursuit And Acquisition Of Truth, Bob Mallison

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

This research will examine some approaches for identifying truth as well as some issues involved in recognizing reliable sources of information. We will proceed from a decidedly Christian perspective including the conviction that God created an orderly universe (and that studying nature provides valuable information about Him) and that His Word, the Bible, even more clearly expresses in- formation about Him. We will discuss some of the essential tools used by mathematicians and scientists for the discovery of truth – namely, models. We will examine some valuable models from history, and briefly discuss that as additional scientific information became available, …

Lagrange's Interpolation, Chinese Remainder, And Linear Equations, Jesús Jiménez

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Consider a finite set of points {(x1, y1), (x2, y2), . . . , (xk , yk )} in R2. The Lagrange’s interpolation problem is to find a polynomial p(x) of degree k − 1 satisfying p(xi) = yi for 1 ≤ i ≤ k. We will recall the solution to Lagrange’s interpolation problems as an instance of the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Next, we will show that a similar approach can be used to construct solutions to a system of linear equations.

Factors That Motivate Students To Learn Mathematics, Dave Klanderman, Sarah Klanderman, Benjamin Gliesmann, Josh Wilkerson, Patrick Eggleton

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

What motivates some students to want to learn mathematics while others do not share similar motivation? Are these factors intrinsic, extrinsic, or a combination of both? To answer these questions, we adapted a survey originally developed by Tapia (1996) and later shortened by Lim and Chapman (2015). We administered the survey in multiple middle schools, a high school, and multiple colleges and universities. We obtained over 100 completed surveys for each of these educational levels. This presentation offers an analysis of these data, including descriptive statistics and confidence intervals for each educational level. For the college and university sample, we …

Marin Mersenne: Minim Monk And Messenger; Monotheism, Mathematics, And Music, Karl-Dieter Crisman

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

If you have taught a number theory course or even watched the mathematical news, you know that occasionally a new (and enormous) “Mersenne prime” is discovered. Those who have introduced students to the prehistory of calculus may know of a certain Marin Mersenne as the interlocutor who drew Fermat and Descartes (and others) out to discuss their methods of tangents (and more). But who was Mersenne, and what did he actually do? This presentation will give an overview of his times, his role in the history of science, and his own writings. We’ll especially look into why a monk from …

Addressing Challenges In Creating Math Presentations, David Schweitzer

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

When it comes to composing presentation slides with extensive mathematical content, each of the slide creation platforms has at least one significant drawback. Whether it is Beamer and its steep learning curve, PowerPoint and its relative inefficiency with math, Google Slides and its complete lack of math capabilities, or some other platform, no one tool single-handedly offers an ideal solution. Additionally, if users desire creative flexibility, such as the ability to easily change fonts or colors, the platforms’ respective limitations can become even more pronounced. In a project that has been well suited for undergraduate research, the presenter and his …

Is Mathematical Truth Time Dependent? Comments From A Paper By Judith Grabiner, Richard Stout

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Judith Grabiner, a renowned historian of mathematics, has written many papers related to signifi- cant changes in the content and nature of analysis, from the 17th through the 19th century. In her paper “Is Mathematical Truth Time Dependent?” Professor Grabiner gives several reasons for the changing nature and requirements in rigor that occurred over this period of two hundred years. In this talk I will briefly summarize her conclusions, particularly in light of how they might influence a Christian perspective on mathematics.

Numerical Range Of Toeplitz Matrices Over Finite Fields, Derek Thompson, Maddison Guillaume Baker, Amish Mishra

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

We characterize the kth numerical range of all n×n Toeplitz matrices with a constant main diagonal and another single, non-zero diagonal, where the matrices are over the field Zp[i], with p a prime congruent to 3 mod 4. We find that, for k ∈ Z∗, the kth numerical range is always equal to Zp[i] with the exception of the scaled identity. We also use similar techniques to discover a general connection between the 0th numerical range and the kth numerical range. Lastly, we conclude with a conjecture regarding the general numerical range of all triangular Toeplitz matrices.

Charles Babbage And Mathematical Aspects Of The Miraculous, Courtney K. Taylor

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Charles Babbage is widely known as the father of the computer, but he is lesser known for his contributions to natural theology and apologetics. In 1837 Babbage wrote the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise in response to a series of writings concerning faith and science that had been commissioned by the Royal Society. Among the remarkable features of the Ninth Bridgewater are mathematical analogies concerning the miraculous. We will explore these ideas, which range from the difference engine to a family of fourth degree curves, illustrating that for Babbage, miracles are not exceptions to natural law, but rather instances of a larger …

Replacing Remedial Mathematics With Corequisites In General Education Mathematics Courses, Alana Unfried

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Many colleges and universities offer courses, such as Remedial Mathematics or Elementary Algebra, that underprepared students must complete before they can take a college-level mathematics course. However, nationally there is a push to replace remedial mathematics courses with corequisite courses instead. This design allows students to enter directly into their general education mathematics course instead of first overcoming the barrier of a remedial course. Corequisite mathematics courses were implemented across the 23-campus California State University system during the 2018-19 academic year. I will discuss the design and implementation of a corequisite structure at California State University, Monterey Bay, in particular …

Maximum Elements Of Ordered Sets And Anselm's Ontological Argument, Doug Ward

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

I will present a simple theorem concerning maximal elements of a set T endowed with an ordering “>” that is antisymmetric, i.e., if A and B are elements of T , we cannot have both A > B and B > A. A special case of this theorem is a simple version of the ontological argument, one of the classical proofs for the existence of God.

Models, Values, And Disasters, Michael H. Veatch

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

Decision-support models have values embedded in them and are subjective to varying degrees. Philosophical and ethical perspectives on operations research models are used to describe this subjectivity. Approaches to model building are then suggested that take into account subjectivity and values. For the decisions to reflect the right values, the model must align with the decision-maker’s values. I argue that it is appropriate and important for Christians applying mathematical models to be keenly aware of decision-maker’s values and seek to reflect them in the model. Disaster response planning is presented as an example where incorporating values is challenging. The responding …

Computer Science: Creating In A Fallen World, Russell Tuck

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

When God created people in his image, he gave us the gift of sub-creation. One of the great joys of Computer Science is exercising that gift to create tools : software and computer systems that serve people and solve problems. Like all God’s gifts, he charges us to exercise the gift of sub-creation wisely and for good. While there are many obvious implications and challenges, being good stewardship of users’ time and reducing discrimination are particularly relevant and perhaps less obvious examples. Although computer scientists exercise the gift of sub-creation, we do so as fallen people in a fallen world. …

Overcoming Stereotypes Through A Liberal Arts Math Course, Jessica Hamm

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

"I'm just not a math person.” We’ve heard this comment countless times from our students. It is a mentality that both paralyzes and strangely comforts them. In this talk I will describe how I use my liberal arts Joy of Mathematics course to help students address and overcome stereotypes. In particular, I will discuss a specific assignment as well as share some student comments and perspectives on how this course helped change their viewpoint on more than just math.

Teaching Mathematics At An African University -- My Experience, Kathleen Lewis

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

For eight years (2010-2018), I was the head of the math department at The University of The Gambia, a small, new (started in 1999) university in a very small, mostly Muslim, West African country that most Americans have never heard of. During that time, a number of other Americans and Europeans came to teach for shorter periods of time. I will talk about what this experience was like for us, both the good and the bad. I will describe the possibilities for others to spend either a sabbatical or an extended period of time at such a university and suggest …