Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Human Face Of Mathematics: Reuben Hersh (1927-2020) In Memoriam, Elena Anne Corie Marchisotto

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Reuben Hersh (1927-2020) celebrated mathematics as a human endeavor, historically evolved and intelligible only in a social context. It is therefore appropriate to remember him in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. There have been many tributes to Reuben, which commemorate his life and impressive mathematical and philosophical achievements. This memoriam to Reuben instead focuses on showing how his humanistic philosophy was so indicative of the person he was.

Three Creativity-Fostering Projects Implemented In A Statistics Class, Margaret Adams

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Undergraduates in an introductory statistics class at a rural Southeastern college were assigned three creativity-fostering projects: statistics vocabulary crossword puzzle, word wall, and graffiti art poster. Given math anxiety, fear of failure, and lack of enthusiasm, it seemed imperative to spark interest and involvement. Rhodes 4P’s model (1961) served as the framework for this intrinsic case study involving 62 students. Independent thinking and research, peer collaboration, and use of art supplies within this model (person, press, process and product) generated remarkable learning outcomes. Grading rubrics focused on originality, quality and statistics content. Projects were classified into three qualitative categories ranging …

Creative Assignments In Upper Level Undergraduate Courses Inspired By Mentoring Undergraduate Research Projects, Malgorzata A. Marciniak

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article describes methods and approaches for incorporating creative projects in undergraduate mathematics courses for students of engineering and computer science in an urban community college. The topics and the grading rubrics of the projects go way beyond standard homework questions and contain elements of finding own project, incorporating historical background, inventing own questions and exercises, or demonstrating experiments to illustrate some aspects of the project. After analyzing challenges and outcomes of these projects, I identified several skills which help students be successful, including the skills of creativity. These skills are writing, oral presentation, math skills, and collaboration skills. I …

What Would The Nautilus Say? Unleashing Creativity In Mathematics!, Megan E. Selbach-Allen, Cathy A. Williams, Jo Boaler

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While the nautilus shell is often represented in popular culture as an example of a golden spiral, according to many mathematicians it is not. In this paper we examine multiple arguments for and against considering the nautilus as a “golden” spiral and offer a semi-structured task that is accessible to middle school students and beyond to begin their own investigation. Our hope is that asking, what would the nautilus say, can serve as a starting point for children and adults alike to push against the walls we so often draw around mathematical questions and begin to see where their creativity …

Tactivities: Fostering Creativity Through Tactile Learning Activities, Angie Hodge-Zickerman, Eric Stade, Cindy S. York, Janice Rech

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

As mathematics teachers, we hope our students will approach problems with a spirit of creativity. One way to both model and encourage this spirit – and, at the same time, to keep ourselves from getting bored – is through creative approaches to problem design. In this paper, we discuss ``TACTivities'' – mathematical activities with a tactile component – as a creative outlet for those of us who teach mathematics, and as a resource for stimulating creative thinking in our students. We use examples, such as our ``derivative fridge magnets'' TACTivity, to illustrate the main ideas. We emphasize that TACTivities can …

Going Beyond Promoting: Preparing Students To Creatively Solve Future Problems, Kristin M. Arney, Kayla K. Blyman, Jennifer D. Cepeda, Scott A. Lynch, Michael J. Prokos, Scott Warnke

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While we cannot know what problems the future will bring, we can be almost certain that solving them will require creativity. In this article we describe how our course, a first-year undergraduate mathematics course, supports creative problem solving. Creative problem solving cannot be learned through a single experience, so we provide our students with a blend of experiences. We discuss how the course structure enables creative problem solving through class instruction, during class activities, during out of class assessments, and during in class assessments. We believe this course structure increases student comfort with solving open-ended and ill-defined problems similar to …

Does Your Course Effectively Promote Creativity? Introducing The Mathematical Problem Solving Creativity Rubric, Kayla K. Blyman, Kristin M. Arney, Bryan Adams, Tara A. Hudson

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

As believers in the power of blending the creative with the quantitative, we design our courses with an eye towards developing creative problem solvers. However, when it comes time to evaluate our course's success in developing creative problem solvers we come away with a plethora of qualitative evidence and yet we are left hungry for the quantitative evidence we desire as mathematicians.

In this article we describe the development of the Mathematical Problem Solving Creativity Rubric and its pilot use in a freshman-level Mathematical Modeling and Introduction to Calculus course at the United States Military Academy. We not only come …

A Study Of Problem Posing As A Means To Help Mathematics Teachers Foster Creativity, Deborah Moore-Russo, Amanda A. Simmons, Michael J.D. Tulino

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Research suggests that mathematical creativity often results from extended periods of mathematical activity and reflection based on the use of deep and flexible content knowledge [14, 15]. This implies that instruction can influence creativity. However, for teaching to foster creativity in mathematics, there should be purposefully designed instructional tasks. It is doubtful that routine, mechanical exercises would foster creativity. Moreover, mathematical creativity may neither be explicitly promoted, nor fully appreciated, by students when a learning space involves only problem solving, even if the problems are challenging and engaging. For students to get an authentic sense of mathematics and to develop …

Developing Arduino Coding Curriculum, Tyler Brown, Riley Bucheitte, Timothy Kidd

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

No abstract provided.

Lectures On Mathematical Computing With Python, Jay Gopalakrishnan

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

This open resource is a collection of class activities for use in undergraduate courses aimed at teaching mathematical computing, and computational thinking in general, using the python programming language. It was developed for a second-year course (MTH 271) revamped for a new undergraduate program in data science at Portland State University. The activities are designed to guide students' use of python modules effectively for scientific computation, data analysis, and visualization.

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Guided Reinvention As A Context For Investigating Students' Thinking About Mathematical Language And For Supporting Students In Gaining Fluency, Kristen Vroom

Dissertations and Theses

Fluency with mathematical language is important for students' engagement in many disciplinary practices such as defining, conjecturing, and proving; yet, there is growing evidence that mathematical language is challenging for undergraduate students. This dissertation study draws on two design experiments with pairs of students who were supported to encode their mathematical meanings with more formal language. I aimed to investigate the teaching and learning of mathematical language, and particularly the language in statements with multiple quantifiers, by engaging students in this type of activity. In the first paper, I investigated the complex ways in which the students in my study …

Exploring User Interface Improvements For Software Developers Who Are Blind, Guarionex J. Salivia, Flint D. Million, Megan E. Bening

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Software developers who are blind and interact with the computer non-visually face unique challenges with information retrieval. We explore the use of speech and Braille combined with software to provide an improved interface to aid with challenges associated with information retrieval. We motivate our design on common tasks performed by students in a software development course using a Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages (MIPS) architecture simulation tool. We test our interface via a single-subject longitudinal study, and we measure and show improvement in both the user’s performance and the user experience.

Tactviz: A Vmd Plugin For Tactile Visualization Of Protein Structures, Olivia R. Shaw, Jodi A. Hadden-Perilla

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Scientific disciplines spanning biology, biochemistry, and biophysics involve the study of proteins and their functions. Visualization of protein structures represents a barrier to education and research in these disciplines for students who are blind or visually impaired. Here, we present a software plugin for readily producing variable-height tactile graphics of proteins using the free biomolecular visualization software Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) and protein structure data that is publicly available through the Protein Data Bank. Our method also supports interactive tactile visualization of proteins with VMD on electronic refreshable tactile display devices. Employing our method in an academic laboratory has enabled …

Visualization Without Vision – How Blind And Visually Impaired Students And Researchers Engage With Molecular Structures, Croix J. Laconsay, Henry B. Wedler, Dean J. Tantillo

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This article examines the tools and techniques currently available that enable blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals to visualize three-dimensional objects used in learning chemistry concepts. How BVI individuals engage with and visualize molecular structure is discussed and recent tactile (or haptic) and auditory methods for visualization of various chemistry concepts are summarized. Remaining challenges for chemistry education researchers are described with the aim of highlighting the potential value of educational research in further enabling BVI students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Toward A Framework For The Natures Of Proportional Reasoning In Introductory Physics, Andrew Boudreaux, Stephen E. Kanim, Alexis Olsho, Suzanne W. Brahmia, Charlotte Zimmerman, Trevor I. Smith

Physics & Astronomy

We present a set of modes of reasoning about ratio and proportion as a means of operationalizing expert practice in physics. These modes, or natures of proportional reasoning, stem from consideration of how physicists reason in context and are informed by prior work in physics and mathematics education. We frame the natures as the core of an emerging framework for proportional reasoning in introductory physics, that will categorize the uses of proportional reasoning in introductory physics contexts, and provide guidance for the development of reliable assessments. We share results from preliminary assessment items indicating that university physics students have difficulty …

A Lab Skills Diagnostic Test, John Zwart

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The American Association of Physics Teachers recommends that physics majors have proficiency in the following lab skills: constructing knowledge, modeling, designing experiments, analyzing and visualizing data, and communicating physics. I have developed a brief multiple-choice questionnaire to assess incoming students’ lab skill level in these areas. It was administered as both a pre-test and post-test for the first semester of introductory calculus-based physics. Preliminary results indicate that little improvement on the skills tested occurs without explicit instruction.

Variability In The Effectiveness Of Psychological Interventions Based On Machine Learning In Stem Education, Mohammad Hasan, Bilal Khan

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This manuscript presents a framework to investigate the variability in the effectiveness of psychological interventions supported by Machine Learning (ML) based early-warning systems (EWS) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. It emphasizes the importance of investigating the resulting variability and suggests that effective EWS cannot be designed without a deeper understanding of the variability. The framework uses an ML-based model to predict students’ academic performance early in the semester for a Sophomore-level Computer Science course at a public university in the United States. The students were given psychological interventions by sending their end-of-term performance forecast thrice during the semester. …

Climate Toolkit: A Resource Manual For Science And Action - Version 2.0, Frank Granshaw

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

The Climate Toolkit is a resource manual designed to help the reader navigate the complex and perplexing issue of climate change by providing tools and strategies to explore the underlying science. As such it contains a collection of activities that make use of readily available on-line resources developed by research groups and public agencies. These include web-based climate models, climate data archives, interactive atlases, policy papers, and “solution” catalogs. Unlike a standard textbook, it is designed to help readers do their own climate research and devise their own perspective rather than providing them with a script to assimilate and repeat. …

Cross-Cultural Comparisons: The Art Of Computing The Greatest Common Divisor, Mary K. Flagg

Number Theory

No abstract provided.

Playfair's Introduction Of Time Series To Represent Data, Diana White, Joshua Eastes, Negar Janani, River Bond

Statistics and Probability

No abstract provided.

Adversarial Teaching Approach To Cybersecurity: A Mathematical Model Explains Why It Works Well, Christian Servin, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Teaching cybersecurity means teaching all possible ways how software can be attacked -- and how to fight such attacks. From the usual pedagogical viewpoint, a natural idea seems to be to teach all these ways one by one. Surprisingly, a completely different approach works even better: when the class is divided into sparring mini-teams that try their best to attack each other and defend from each other. In spite of the lack of thoroughness, this approach generates good specialists -- but why? In this paper, by analyzing a simple mathematical model of this situation, we explain why this approach work …

Investigation Of Evidence For The Internal Structure Of A Modified Science Motivation Questionnaire Ii (Msmq Ii): A Failed Attempt To Improve Instrument Functioning Across Course, Subject, And Wording Variants, Regis Komperda, Kathryn Hosbein, Michael M. Phillips, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II) was developed to measure aspects of student motivation in college-level science courses. Items on the SMQ II are structured such that the word ‘science’ can be replaced with any discipline title (e.g., chemistry) to produce a discipline-specific measure of student motivation. Since its original development as the Science Motivation Questionnaire and subsequent refinement, the SMQ II and its discipline-specific variants have been used in a number of science education studies. However, many studies have failed to produce acceptable validity evidence for their data based on the proposed internal structure of the …

Iba Newsletter [July 2020], Communications Department, Office Of The Registrar

IBA News

No abstract provided.

Playfair's Novel Visual Displays Of Data, Diana White, River Bond, Joshua Eastes, Negar Janani

Statistics and Probability

No abstract provided.

Crosssections, Summer 2020, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Physics.

CrossSections

Inside This Issue:
--Faculty Profile Pavel Lukashev
--Department Happenings
--Focus on Students
--Physics Education
--Alumni Profile Wes Golden
--Alumni News
--Retrospective
--New Physics
--Support the Department

Deep Learning Of Facial Embeddings And Facial Landmark Points For The Detection Of Academic Emotions, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Automatic emotion recognition is an actively researched area as emotion plays a pivotal role in effective human communications. Equipping a computer to understand and respond to human emotions has potential applications in many fields including education, medicine, transport and hospitality. In a classroom or online learning context, the basic emotions do not occur frequently and do not influence the learning process itself. The academic emotions such as engagement, frustration, confusion and boredom are the ones which are pivotal to sustaining the motivation of learners. In this study, we evaluated the use of deep learning on FaceNet embeddings and facial landmark …

Teaching College Chemistry In The Time Of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Personal Account Of Teaching In The Old Normal Vs. The New Normal, Armando M. Guidote Jr

Chemistry Faculty Publications

The SARS CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2), cause of COVID-19 (CoronaVirus Disease 2019) has afflicted close to 10 million people all over the world resulting to almost half a million deaths. This disease is severely contagious and necessitates social or physical distancing between persons. As such, traditional face-to-face learning is not advised and teachers need to shift to online teaching. There are challenges to online teaching and learning for students, teachers, and the higher education institute, e.g. hardware, bandwidth, and software issues. These will be difficult but these can be overcome eventually. This work is a personal account …

Examining The Impact Of Climate Change Film As An Educational Tool, Brittany Bondi, Salma Monani, Sarah M. Principato, Christopher P. Barlett

Student Publications

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of film in communicating issues related to climate change. While previous studies demonstrate an immediate effect of a film post-screening, this study also considered if a film can inspire long-term effects, and if supplemental educational information plays a role on participant understanding.

Design/methodology/approach: Using surveys, we assessed undergraduate students’ climate change responses pre-, immediately-post, and 9-weeks post watching the climate change documentary The Human Element (Prod. Earth Vision Institute, 2018). In the 9-week interim before the final survey, half of the participants received weekly information on climate change via …

Combining Transformation Of Graphs With Solutions To Absolute Value Inequalities, Ryan D. Fox

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

I present how transformations can be applied to support students’ solving linear inequalities involving absolute value. In particular, the horizontal dilations/compressions and translations of graphical representations of distances from zero along a number line are important tools to emphasize a visual representation of the solutions to absolute value inequalities.

Malaware Defensive: A Game To Train Users To Combat Malware, Tyler Moon, Tamirat Abegaz, Bryson Payne, Abi Salimi

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Several research findings indicate that basic cyber hygiene can potentially deter the majority of cyber threats. One of the ways cybersecurity professionals can prepare users to ensure proper hygiene is to help them develop their ability to spot the difference between normal and abnormal behavior in a computer system. Malware disrupts the normal behavior of a computer system. The lack of appropriate user training has been one of the main reasons behind the exposure of computer systems to threats, from social engineering to viruses, trojans, and ransomware. Basic knowledge about common behavioral characteristics of malware could help users identify potentially …