Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis As A Laboratory Activity: At The Interface Of Physics And The Body, Elliot Mylott, Ellynne Marie Kutschera, Ralf Widenhorn

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a novel laboratory activity on RC circuits aimed at introductory physics students in life-science majors. The activity teaches principles of RC circuits by connecting ac-circuit concepts to bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) using a custom-designed educational BIA device. The activity shows how a BIA device works and how current, voltage, and impedance measurements relate to bioelectrical characteristics of the human body. From this, useful observations can be made including body water, fat-free mass, and body fat percentage. The laboratory is engaging to pre-health and life-science students, as well as engineering students who are given the opportunity to observe electrical …

Mathematics Achievement With Digital Game-Based Learning In High School Algebra 1 Classes, Terri Ferguson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examined the impact of digital game-based learning (DGBL) on mathematics achievement in a rural high school setting in North Carolina. A causal comparative research design was used in this study to collect data to determine the effectiveness of DGBL in high school Algebra 1 classes. Data were collected from the North Carolina End-of-Course (EOC) Test for high school Algebra 1. The data collection was broken down by comparison groups based on academic achievement as measured by the North Carolina EOC Test for Algebra 1. The comparison groups were student participants who received digital game-based instruction and tradition instruction …

The Effect Of Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs On Practice, Milton David Huling

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unfortunately, for the most part, teachers do not teach the Nature of Science (NOS). Even when teachers have adequate NOS knowledge, their knowledge still does not make its way into practice. While there are various reasons for this happening, this study has isolated other, more typical, constraints to teaching in order to look more closely at the influence of personal epistemological beliefs, understandings of NOS, and their effects on practice. In an effort to minimize typical constraints of time for the teaching of NOS, a sixth grade physical science course was chosen as a way to minimize this constraint. Within …

Transformative Science Education Through Action Research And Self-Study Practices, Olga Calderon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The research studies human emotions through diverse methods and theoretical lenses. My intention in using this approach is to provide alternative ways of perceiving and interpreting emotions being experienced in the moment of arousal. Emotions are fundamental in human interactions because they are essential in the development of effective relationships of any kind and they can also mediate hostility towards others. I begin by presenting an impressionist auto-ethnography, which narrates a personal account of how science and scientific inquiry has been entrenched in me since childhood. I describe how emotions are an important part of how I perceive and respond …

What Is So Negative About Negative Exponents?, Geoffrey D. Dietz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While teaching college-level mathematics (from College Algebra to Calculus to Abstract Algebra), I have observed that students are often uncomfortable using negative exponents in calculations. I believe the fault partially lies in the manner in which negative exponents are taught in Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 courses, especially in rigid instructions always to write answers using only positive exponents. After reviewing a sample of algebra texts used in the United States over the last two centuries, it appears that while attitudes toward negative exponents have varied from author to author over time, the current trend is to declare explicitly that …

Benjamin Banneker's Original Handwritten Document: Observations And Study Of The Cicada, Janet E. Barber, Asamoah Nkwanta

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Benjamin Banneker, farmer, mathematician, astronomer, and scientist, is known for his mathematical puzzles, ephemeris calculations, almanacs, his wooden clock, land surveying work, and famous letter on human rights. However, as a naturalist, his scientific and systematic observations of the cicadas are less known. In this paper we publicize Banneker’s naturalistic study of the seventeen-year periodic cycle of the cicada and make available the original handwritten document of his observations. We also introduce the audience of this journal to an intriguing natural problem involving prime numbers.

Arizona Clinical Research Workforce Survey, Cris E. Wells, Julie A. Robbins, Gaye Luna

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

Objective: We characterize the current clinical research workforce in Arizona with the goal of identifying possible educational training gaps for the future workforce. Background: The science community, government entities, educational institutions, and community programs continue to advocate for additional funding and resources to educate the bioscience workforce, of which clinical research is a part. However, there is little evidence that additional training and/or education is needed within the clinical research profession. Method: We utilized an electronic survey tool that was designed to solicit workforce data from clinical research professionals actively working or seeking employment in the field of clinical research …

Project Nano: Will Allowing High School Students To Use Research Grade Scanning Electron Microscopes Increase Their Interest In Science?, Leslie Teneyck Smith

Dissertations and Theses

In this study, one AP Biology curriculum unit and one general Biology curriculum unit that included tabletop Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) technology provided by Project NANO, a grant-funded, collaborative initiative designed to integrate cutting-edge nanotechnology into high school classrooms were implemented at a public high school in rural Oregon. Nine students participated in the AP unit and 52 students participated in the general Biology unit. Each student completed an opinion-based pre and post survey to determine if using the SEM as a part of the curriculum unit had an impact on his or her interest in science or in nanoscience. …

Student Retention In Stem: Exploration Of The Gender Gap, Olha Ketsman, Carolina C. Ilie

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Prior research indicates that there are small numbers of women in STEM areas and in physics in particular; the latter may suggest that women who have potential to contribute to physics choose other careers. This presentation examines the gender gap in STEM with a focus on physics. We discuss a that was survey administered to undergraduate science students at one primarily undergraduate college in the United States, the factors that impacted student decisions in physics, and recommendations to increase student retention.

Effects Of Ethnicity And Gender On Sixth-Grade Students' Environmental Knowledge And Attitudes After Participation In A Year-Long Environmental Education Program, Rachel Stagner

Dissertations and Theses

The goal of environmental education (EE) has always been to increase knowledge about the environment and to foster positive environmental attitudes. Increasingly, as the call for integrating EE programs into mainstream science curriculum intensifies, it is important to continue to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs not only through measures of change in knowledge and attitudes, but through the additional criteria of meeting the needs of different gender and ethnic groups.

The purpose of this research was to identify whether a watershed education program was meeting the needs of diverse learners within the context of a year-long, integrated, sixth-grade science …

Grading By Response Category: A Simple Method For Providing Students With Meaningful Feedback On Exams In Large Courses, Cassandra Paul, Wendell Potter, Brenda Weiss

Faculty Publications

As instructors, we want our students to develop a deep understanding of course material, and feedback is essential in their sense-making process. Providing effective individualized feedback to students in large courses is especially difficult. While researcherssuggest,1 and many instructors of large courses are,2,3incorporating interactive techniques that allow peer feedback, studies have shown that it's important for students to also have direct feedback from the instructor.4 Since the requirement for individualized feedback is difficult to meet during class time in large courses, providing effective feedback on exams and quizzes takes on added importance. Some instructors choose to …

Parts Of The Whole: Only Connect, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

This is the first of several columns that will focus on the mechanisms by which new ideas become accepted by a culture, offering some familiar examples, deriving basic principles from these examples, and applying them to the problem of promoting quantitative literacy in an educational system. In this essay we describe how new concepts become embedded in a culture through their connections to existing ideas, and use this principle to suggest strategies of discourse about numeracy that promote it among various constituencies in the culture.

The Language Of Comparisons: Communicating About Percentages, Jessica Polito

Numeracy

While comparisons between percentages or rates appear frequently in journalism and advertising, and are an essential component of quantitative writing, many students fail to understand precisely what percentages mean, and lack fluency with the language used for comparisons. After reviewing evidence demonstrating this weakness, this experience-based perspective lays out a framework for teaching the language of comparisons in a structured way, and illustrates it with several authentic examples that exemplify mistaken or misleading uses of such numbers. The framework includes three common types of erroneous or misleading quantitative writing: the missing comparison, where a key number is omitted; the apples-to-pineapples …

Sixth Graders Benefit From Educational Software When Learning About Fractions: A Controlled Classroom Study, Susanne Scharnagl, Petra Evanschitzky, Judith Streb, Manfred Spitzer, Katrin Hille

Numeracy

This study analyses the effectiveness of an educational web-based software package for teaching mathematics in schools. In all, 864 sixth graders and their teachers took part in the controlled study. Students learned the addition and subtraction of fractions with (intervention group; n = 469) or without (control group; n = 395) the support of the educational software. Compared to the controls, students who used the software showed better results in the post-test. Gains were dose dependent and particularly marked in high-ability students and students with lower scores of math anxiety.

Teaching Quantitative Reasoning: A Better Context For Algebra, Eric Gaze

Numeracy

This editorial questions the preeminence of algebra in our mathematics curriculum. The GATC (Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus) sequence abandons the fundamental middle school math topics necessary for quantitative literacy, while the standard super-abundance of algebra taught in the abstract fosters math phobia and supports a culturally acceptable stance that math is not relevant to everyday life. Although GATC is seen as a pipeline to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), it is a mistake to think that the objective of producing quantitatively literate citizens is at odds with creating more scientists and engineers. The goal must be to create a curriculum …

Developing Transfer Skills In A Biochemistry Class, Jeong V. Choe

Faculty Publications & Research

Students seem to struggle with transferring prior knowledge if the new problem they are given is in a different form from the way they learned the material. The process of transfer can be identified by four components: 1) recognizing the similarity between the old and new contexts; 2) identifying the potential of a certain skill or concept that has worked in the past, to give solutions to new problematic situations; 3) mental testing of the application of the potential solution; and 4) an attempt to apply the skill or concept to a new context (Georghiades 2000). These four components are …

The Imsa© Promise: Diverse Perspectives Do Enrich Understanding!, Barb J. Miller, Adrienne Coleman

Publications & Research

For years we have grappled with the effects of the Achievement Gap, which has been defined by: (a) the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2011) as the “observed, persistent disparity of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity and gender; (b) The National Education Association (2013) as differences between the scores of students with different backgrounds (ethnic, racial, gender, disability, and income) are evident on large-scale standardized tests, adding that test score gaps often lead to longer-term gaps, including high school and college completion and the kinds of jobs students …

The Effect Of The Pies Mnemonic Strategy On The Word Problem Solving Skills Of Middle School Students, Lisa A. Short

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the PIES mnemonic strategy on the word problem solving skills of middle school students in inclusive math classes. Participants in the study were 109 students in a rural middle school in a mid-Atlantic state. Seventy-five participants were normally achieving students, and 34 were students with disabilities (Other Health Impairment, Specific Learning Disability, and Emotional/Behavioral Disorders). A pretest consisting of 10 grade-level word problems covering concepts that had already been taught was administered. Students then learned the PIES mnemonic strategy (Picture, Information, Equation, Solution) and participated in five weeks of …

Improving Outcomes For Underrepresented Women In Science: The Achieving Excellence In Mathematics, Engineering, And Science (Aemes) Programs At Smith College, Laura A. Katz, Kathryn M. Aloisio, Yadira Flores, Nicholas J. Horton, Valerie Joseph, Katie Lipp, Minh Ly, Sara Pruss, Kate Queeny, Cate Rowen, Patricia Marten Dibartolo

The Office of Institutional Research

Created to support diverse students interested in the sciences, Smith College’s Achieving Excellence in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science (AEMES) programs have improved life science academic outcomes for women of color. Elements of Smith’s AEMES programs include leadership development, peer mentoring, and faculty-mentored research opportunities, all sharing the goals of building community, increasing academic engagement, and encouraging persistence for underrepresented students. Since launching AEMES, our students of color in the life sciences have shown significant gains in positive outcomes (introductory biology and chemistry course GPA; retention in life sciences majors), dissolving a previously observed gap in gateway course performance relative to …

An Investigation Of Factors Affecting Student Performance In Algebraic Word Problem Solutions, Jerry Eugene Wright

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to investigate the potential significance of several student algebraic word problem solving skills. The solution of an algebra word problem (AWP) requires the creation and solution of an equation based on the problem context. Common Core State Standards in both English Language Arts and Mathematics emphasize student learning and proficiency in algebra word problem contexts. Eight factors of student mathematical ability were proposed, and three of those eight factors were studied in depth to determine their significance. Similar research supported the theory that the translation phase of the solution process presented the student with the most …

Pathways To Mathematics College Readiness In Maine, David L. Silvernail Phd, Ida A. Batista, James E. Sloan, Erika K. Stump Phd, Amy F. Johnson Phd

Higher Education and College Readiness

The goal of this study was to examine the pathways to being college ready in mathematics. Students who enter high school already having demonstrated mathematics proficiency on a standardized test in the 8th grade have already taken a significant step towards being college ready. The best scenario is to enter high school proficient in mathematics and having already completed Algebra I, then to complete at least Algebra II and Calculus before graduating from high school. Students completing this pathway are virtually guaranteed to be college ready in mathematics.

Lack Of Quantitative Training Among Early-Career Ecologists: A Survey Of The Problem And Potential Solutions, F. Barraquand, T. G. Ezard, P. Søgaard Jørgensen, Naupaka B. Zimmerman, S. Chamberlain, R. Salguero-Gómez, T. J. Curran, T. Poisot

Biology Faculty Publications

Proficiency in mathematics and statistics is essential to modern ecological science, yet few studies have assessed the level of quantitative training received by ecologists. To do so, we conducted an online survey. The 937 respondents were mostly early-career scientists who studied biology as undergraduates. We found a clear self-perceived lack of quantitative training: 75% were not satisfied with their understanding of mathematical models; 75% felt that the level of mathematics was “too low” in their ecology classes; 90% wanted more mathematics classes for ecologists; and 95% more statistics classes. Respondents thought that 30% of classes in ecology-related degrees should be …

Incorporating Real Science Into The Secondary Classroom: Aerosols And Climate Change, Lorentyna M. Harkness

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Climate science and climate change are included in the Next Generation Science Standards, curriculum standards that were released in 2013. How to incorporate these topics, especially climate change, has been a difficult task for teachers. A team of scientists are studying aerosols in the free troposphere; what their properties are, how they change while in the atmosphere and where they came from. Lessons were created based on this real, ongoing scientific research being conducted in the Azores. During these activities, students are exposed to what scientists actually do in the form of videos and participate in similar tasks such as …

A Report On The Mitep Program And Its Impact On My Teaching, Nicholas C. Grabemeyer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This report has two major objectives. First, the results of an action research project conducted at my high school concerning the use of graphic organizers and their effects on students' written expression abilities. The findings from this action research project indicate that the use of graphic organizers can prove beneficial to students. The second major objective of this report is to provide a reflection and evaluation of my experiences as a participant in the Michigan Teacher Excellence Program (MiTEP). This program provided middle and high school science teachers with an opportunity to develop research based pedagogy techniques and develop the …

Pedagogy Of Science Teaching Tests: Formative Assessments Of Science Teaching Orientations, William W. Cobern, David Schuster, Betty Adams, Brandy Ann Skjold, Ebru Zeynep Mugaloglu, Amy Bentz, Kelly Sparks

Scientific Literacy and Cultural Studies Project

A critical aspect of teacher education is gaining pedagogical content knowledge of how to teach science for conceptual understanding. Given the time limitations of college methods courses, it is difficult to touch on more than a fraction of the science topics potentially taught across grades K-8, particularly in the context of relevant pedagogies. This research and development work centers on constructing a formative assessment resource to help expose pre-service teachers to a greater number of science topics within teaching episodes using various modes of instruction. To this end, 100 problem-based, science pedagogy assessment items were developed via expert group discussions …

Math Department Newsletter, 2013-2014, Mathematics Department

Mathematics Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Connecting With The Caribbean, Sueanne Mckinney, Linda Irwin-Devitis, Brenda Scanelli, Sharon Thomas, Andrew Casiello, Heather Huling

Distance Learning Faculty & Staff Publications

Teaching and learning mathematics can be a universal language. Our session will focus on the collaborative efforts of Old Dominion University and the Caribbean schools on the islands of St. Kitts, Dominica, Nevis and Anguilla in order to provide professional development learning opportunities in the area of mathematics. Specifically, the learning opportunity sessions concentrate on the use of manipulatives to teach conceptual understandings of mathematical ideals for the participating Caribbean schools and teachers. Preliminary data will be presented and discussed that includes the technical process, teacher understanding and participation, and mathematics self-efficacy.

Ua64/2 The Challenge: Magazine For The Center For Gifted Studies (No. 33, Winter 2014), Center For Gifted Studies, Tracy Inman Editor

Gifted Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

Mathematics: Creating Value For Engineering Students, Eileen Goold

Conference Papers

While students’ attainment in mathematics and their attitudes about mathematics are strongly inter-related, value is an important concept in mathematics education. It is arguable that lecturers, especially in engineering faculties, know little about the relationships students form with mathematics; for example what value do engineering students place on mathematics learning? Mathematics is often perceived as a difficult subject and it is associated with certainty and with being able to get the right answer. However the narrowness of the assessment process overshadows predictors of achievement behaviour: expectancy (am I able to do the task?) and value (why should I do the …

A Proposed Framework For Combining Smart Environment And Heuristic Diagnostic Teaching Principles In Order To Assess Students’ Abilities In Math And Supporting Them During Learning, Ardiana Sula, Evjola Spaho, Leonard Barolli, Rozeta Miho

Jandrisevits Faculty Publications

In this paper, we propose the use of the smart environment based on Internet of Things (IoT), P2P technology and Heuristic Diagnostic Teaching principles for identifying learning abilities in mathematics and creative traits for students that are diagnosed within Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD). Many children with autism are highly interested and motivated by smart devices such as computers and touch screen tablets. These types of assistive technology devices get children with autism to interact, make choices, respond, gain new communication skills and create P2P communication between children, caregivers and therapists. Our proposed system uses JXTA-Overlay platform and SmartBox device to …