Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Une Histoire De La Formation Mathématique En France: Les Réformes Et Les Philosophies De L’Enseignement Primaire Et Secondaire De 1420 Jusqu'À Aujourd’Hui, Rebecca Robinson

Honors Theses

France has produced many illustrious mathematicians who have profoundly impacted mathematics as they are today. While Descartes, Cauchy, and Borel (among others) viewed math as a lifelong pursuit, they began their education in an elementary school classroom with everybody else. In this study, I explore mathematical reforms and governmental documents throughout history to show how the education system has grown to emphasize a strong mathematical curriculum for all students and have consulted many philosophical articles on both the importance of math in a student’s education as well as different views on the manner in which mathematics should be taught to …

Teaching Introductory Programming Concepts: A Comparison Of Scratch And Arduino, Anne Beug

Master's Theses

Computing has become an integral part of modern America. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between 2008 and 2018, the United States will have 1.4 million job openings in computing fields [1]. Since the early 2000's (just after the "dot com bust"), the number of students enrolled in computing majors (Computer Science, Computer Engineering, etc.) dropped precipitously by over 50%, only starting to rise again in 2009 [2]. One way to rectify to this gap between demand and supply is to start training students in computational thinking during high school. While the Computer Science Advanced Placement AB test has …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2018, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Using The R Library Rpanel For Gui-Based Simulations In Introductory Statistics Courses, Ryan M. Allison

Statistics

As a student, I noticed that the statistical package R (http://www.r-project.org) would have several benefits of its usage in the classroom. One benefit to the package is its free and open-source nature. This would be a great benefit for instructors and students alike since it would be of no cost to use, unlike other statistical packages. Due to this, students could continue using the program after their statistical courses and into their professional careers. It would be good to expose students while they are in school to a tool that professionals use in industry. R also has powerful …

Roger Williams Park Edible Forest Garden, Mark S. Scialla

Senior Honors Projects

An edible forest garden is a low-maintenance system that uses edible native and regionally-adapted plants arranged in beneficial relationships to meet human, wildlife and ecosystem needs. The forest garden in Roger Williams Park will transform underutilized urban land into a highly productive parcel producing market-viable fruits, nuts, vegetables, medicine and fiber. Forest gardens mimic natural forest systems in architecture and complexity. The design follows ecological principles to create a system that promotes biodiversity and enhances the surrounding ecosystem. This project also demonstrates the potential to grow food and create land-based livelihoods in the city.

Located on the edge of a …

K-8 Preservice Teachers’ Inductive Reasoning In The Problem-Solving Contexts, Marta Magiera

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

This paper reports the results from an exploratory study of K-8 pre-service teachers’ inductive reasoning. The analysis of 130 written solutions to seven tasks and 77 reflective journals completed by 20 pre-service teachers lead to descriptions of inductive reasoning processes, i.e. specializing, conjecturing, generalizing, and justifying, in the problem-solving contexts. The uncovered characterizations of the four inductive reasoning processes were further used to describe pathways of successful generalizations. The results highlight the importance of specializing and justifying in constructing powerful generalizations. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

Team-Teaching Experiences Of A Mathematician And A Mathematics Teacher Educator: An Interpretative Phenomenological Case Study, Sarah K. Bleiler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, experts and organizations involved in mathematics education have emphasized the importance of collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics teacher educators as a means of improving the professional preparation of mathematics teachers. While several such collaborative endeavors have been documented in the extant literature, most research reports have focused on the products, rather than the process, of collaboration. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological case study is to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of a mathematician and a mathematics teacher educator as they engaged in a team-teaching collaboration within the context of prospective secondary mathematics teacher preparation. …

The Mathematics Portfolio: An Alternative Tool To Evaluate Students’ Progress, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

This article describes the need for more thorough and varied forms of assessment to evaluate students’ level of understanding in mathematics. Portfolios are one type of assessment tool that, when added to a teacher’s repertoire can improve students’ comprehension and retention and enable students to monitor their own progress and to take more responsibility for their own learning. Portfolio assignments can also help students and teachers to detect and remedy weaknesses and misunderstandings and can increase students’ self-confidence in mathematics. This article discusses what a portfolio is, gives an example of a unit portfolio used in an undergraduate Finite Mathematics …

Systems Of Nonlinear Wave Equations With Damping And Supercritical Sources, Yanqiu Guo

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

We consider the local and global well-posedness of the coupled nonlinear wave equations

u_tt – Δu + g₁(u_t) = f₁(u, v)

v_tt – Δv + g₂(v_t) = f₂(u, v);

in a bounded domain Ω subset of the real numbers (Rⁿ) with a nonlinear Robin boundary condition on u and a zero boundary conditions on v. The nonlinearities f₁(u, v) and f₂(u, v) are with supercritical exponents …

Iowa Academy Of Science: The New Bulletin, V08n1, Spring 2012, Iowa Academy Of Science

New Bulletin

Inside This Issue:

--Message from the Executive Director

--Candidates for IAS President –Elect

--Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science

--Iowa Academy of Science 2012 Ballot

--124th Annual Meeting of the Iowa Academy of Science

--2011 Member Donations to the Academy

--Announcements, Events & Deadlines

Combinatorics Using Computational Methods, Derrick Stolee

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computational combinatorics involves combining pure mathematics, algorithms, and computational resources to solve problems in pure combinatorics. This thesis provides a theoretical framework for combinatorial search, which is then applied to several problems in combinatorics. Some results in space-bounded computational complexity are also presented.

Undergraduate Students' Self-Reported Use Of Mathematics Textbooks, Aaron Weinberg, Emilie Wiesner, Bret Benesh, Timothy Boester

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Textbooks play an important role in undergraduate mathematics courses and have the potential to impact student learning. However, there have been few studies that describe students' textbook use in detail. In this study, 1156 undergraduate students in introductory mathematics classes were surveyed, and asked to describe how they used their textbook. The results indicate that students tend to use examples, instead of the expository text, to build their mathematical understanding, which instructors may view as problematic. This way of using the textbook may be the result of the textbook structure itself, as well as students' beliefs about reading and the …

Logo Programming (Part 1) - A Creative And Fun Way To Learn Mathematics And Problem-Solving, Abhay B. Joshi, Sandesh R. Gaikwad

Abhay B Joshi

Programming means tapping into the computerʹs immense power by talking with it directly. Through programming, children use the computerʹs terrific power to draw graphics, design animation, solve mathematical or word puzzles, and even build robots. This idea was first proposed in the famous book ʺMindstormsʺ by Seymour Papert and has subsequently been appreciated and praised by educators and parents all over the world.

Through programming, students discover that the computer is a powerful and flexible tool. Using interesting ideas embedded in programming environments, students solve problems in their favorite subjects, and also develop interest in ʺdifficultʺ subjects like Math and …

Logo Programming (Part 2) - A Creative And Fun Way To Learn Mathematics And Problem-Solving, Abhay B. Joshi, Sandesh R. Gaikwad

Abhay B Joshi

Programming means tapping into the computerʹs immense power by talking with it directly. Through programming, children use the computerʹs terrific power to draw graphics, design animation, solve mathematical or word puzzles, and even build robots. This idea was first proposed in the famous book ʺMindstormsʺ by Seymour Papert and has subsequently been appreciated and praised by educators and parents all over the world.

Through programming, students discover that the computer is a powerful and flexible tool. Using interesting ideas embedded in programming environments, students solve problems in their favorite subjects, and also develop interest in ʺdifficultʺ subjects like Math and …

What Mathematics Do Elementary Education Teachers Need To Know?, Bret Benesh

Forum Lectures

Almost no one is happy with the state of America's mathematics education. I examine the mathematics textbooks elementary education majors commonly use in college to determine what effect this might be having on their future elementary school students. In this Thursday Forum, I report on what I found in these textbooks---and why I do not like them. I then supply an alternative vision that would better serve our elementary school students.

Following Student Gaze Patterns In Physical Science Lectures, David Rosengrant, Doug Hearrington, Kerriann Alvarado, Danielle Keeble

Faculty Articles

This study investigates the gaze patterns of undergraduate college students attending a lecture-based physical science class to better understand the relationships between gaze and focus patterns and student attention during class. The investigators used a new eye-tracking product; Tobii Glasses. The glasses eliminate the need for subjects to focus on a computer screen or carry around a backpack-sized recording device, thus giving an investigator the ability to study a broader range of research questions. This investigation includes what students focus on in the classroom (i.e. demonstrations, instructor, notes, board work, and presentations) during a normal lecture, what diverts attention away …

Tackling Teaching: Understanding Commonalities Among Chemistry, Mathematics, And Physics Classroom Practices., Samuel Pazicni, Karen A. Marrongelle, Warren Christensen

Chemistry

Abstract:

Education research in chemistry, mathematics, and physics tends to focus on issues inherent to the discipline, most notably content. At this time, little literature evidence exists that documents fruitful collaborations between education specialists across the STEM disciplines. This work seeks to unite the disciplines by investigating a common task: teaching. This study explores how discipline-specific practices influence the common act of reformed teaching pedagogy with a focus on the use of inquiry. We seek to identify commonalities among classroom teaching practices in these disciplines and contribute to the development of analytical tools to study STEM teaching.

A College-Level Foundational Mathematics Course: Evaluation, Challenges, And Future Directions, Wes Maciejewski

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Recently in Ontario, Canada, the College Math Project brought to light startling data on the achievement of students in Ontario's College of Applied Arts and Technology System related to their performance in first-year mathematics courses: one-third of the students had failed their first-year mathematics course or were at risk of not completing their program because of their performance in such a course. Here I present the results of an attempt to address the findings of the College Math Project. A foundational mathematics course, based on the JUMP Math program, was designed and implemented at a college in Toronto, Ontario. Although …

Laboratory Manual For Physics, Gary Lewis

Gary C. Lewis

No abstract provided.

Interactive Learningware For Physics Vol. 1: Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Waves, James Tanner, Gary Lewis

Gary C. Lewis

Retaining the comprehensiveness and rigor of the previous edition, this sequel has been dramatically revised to be more student oriented. Definitions and issues have been improved, making them tighter and more easily understood. More than 400 sample problems have been updated and expanded to reinforce physics concepts. Formulas involving elements of calculus are better explained due to additional subsections. A wealth of animated illustrations and full-color photographs will capture today's visually-oriented students' attention.

Interactive Learningware For Physics Vol. 2: Fundamentals Of Physics, James Tanner, Gary Lewis

Gary C. Lewis

Retaining the comprehensiveness and rigor of the previous edition, this sequel has been dramatically revised to be more student oriented. Definitions and issues have been improved, making them tighter and more easily understood. More than 400 sample problems have been updated and expanded to reinforce physics concepts. Formulas involving elements of calculus are better explained due to additional subsections. A wealth of animated illustrations and full-color photographs will capture today's visually-oriented students' attention.

Excellent Adventures In Global Collaboration, Glenn W. "Max" Mcgee, Aracelys Rios

Glenn W. "Max" McGee

No abstract provided.

Enhancing The Cs Curriculum With With Aspect-Oriented Software Development (Aosd) And Early Experience, Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal, Tzilla Elrad

Konstantin Läufer

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) is evolving as an important step beyond existing software development approaches such as object-oriented development. An aspect is a module that captures a crosscutting concern, behavior that cuts across different units of abstraction in a software application; expressed as a module, such behavior can be enabled and disabled transparently and non-invasively, without changing the application code itself. Increasing industry demand for expertise in AOSD gives rise to the pedagogical challenge of covering this methodology and its foundations in the computer science curriculum. We present our curricular initiative to incorporate a novel course in AOSD in the …

The Extreme Software Development Series: An Open Curricular Framework For Applied Capstone Courses, Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal

Konstantin Läufer

We describe an open, flexible curricular framework for offering a collection of advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in software development. The courses offered within this framework are further unified by combining solid foundations with current technology and play the role of capstone courses in a modern software development track. Our initiative has been very successful with all stakeholders involved.

Student Usage Patterns And Perceptions For Differentiated Lab Exercises In An Undergraduate Programming Course, Heng Ngee Mok

Heng Ngee MOK

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very well received and preferred over their traditional "one size fits all" counter-parts. Although the study does not show that tiered exercises have improved proÞciency or scores, it does seem to indicate higher student engagement and motivation levels. Based on the survey results, a list of recommendations is put forth for the …

Parts Of The Whole: Learn More, Learn Better, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

Building on previous columns in Numeracy, this column analyzes various teaching techniques in terms of their ability to build cognitive schema, extend existing schema, reinforce learning, move mean understanding of a group of students, and reduce variance in understanding of a group. We offer a pedagogical cycle as an example of how to address multiple learning goals using common teaching methods.

Incorporating Quantitative Reasoning In Common Core Courses: Mathematics For The Ghost Map, John R. Jungck

Numeracy

How can mathematics be integrated into multi-section interdisciplinary courses to enhance thematic understandings and shared common readings? As an example, four forms of quantitative reasoning are used to understand and critique one such common reading: Steven Berlin Johnson’s "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World" (Riverhead Books, 2006). Geometry, statistics, modeling, and networks are featured in this essay as the means of depicting, understanding, elaborating, and critiquing the public health issues raised in Johnson’s book. Specific pedagogical examples and resources are included to illustrate applications and …

If Only Math Majors Could Write..., Bernard L. Madison

Numeracy

This text of the opening plenary address to the 2011 Summit of the Appalachian College Association and the meeting of the National Numeracy Network makes an argument that quantitative reasoning and writing should be taught together. The argument is set up by noting that humanists have historically banished quantitative issues from their study of the liberal arts and that science, engineering, and mathematics education suffers from lack of approaches to learning that promote complex, deeper understanding, most notably integrative and reflective learning. Therefore, everyone would profit from combining writing and quantitative reasoning. Five more specific reasons are discussed, drawing evidence …

Period Life Tables: A Resource For Quantitative Literacy, Thomas J. Pfaff, Stanley Seltzer

Numeracy

A period life table provides an estimate of the probability that a person will die at a particular age. Using data available online, we examine tables of expected years to live for males and females against age for three populations: the United States in 2007, the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century, and the Roman Empire. Scatter plots of males and females for each population show how life expectancy increases with age (e.g., U.S. 2007: 50 year-old female > 40 year-old female > 45 year-old male). The three data sets allow historical comparisons (e.g., of gender disparity, larger now; of …

Motivation For Achievement And Attitudes Toward Mathematics Instruction In A Required Calculus Course At The Norwegian University Of Science And Technology, Donna Sundre, Carol Barry, Vidar Gynnild, Erin Tangen Ostgard

Numeracy

This study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) examines students’ learning goals and attitudes toward mathematics in a first-year calculus course in undergraduate engineering education. Achievement motivation research using the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ) is advanced from current literature with two additions: (1) a course specific context using introductory college calculus students, and (2) participation of Norwegian students.

Pre- and posttest measures of attitudes indicate that students do change learning goals over time, unfortunately opposite to the instructors’ aspirations. A significant increase in “Mastery Avoidance” and “Work Avoidance” was accompanied with a drop in “Mastery Approach” and …