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What do we do?
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Each year, we have a workshop at the Allegheny Mountain MAA Spring Section
Meeting and a one day session in early Fall.
Previous Section NExT events:
- April 2008, The theme of the workshop at the 75th Anniversary Allegheny Mountain Section meeting was undergraduate summer programs. We had a panel of five presenters with a variety of summer program experiences. Tami Lakins (Allegheny College) and Lyn Miller (Slippery Rock University) talked about the George Washington summer program. Pam Richardson (Westminster College) and Allegheny College student Becky Egg spoke about their experiences with the Summer Mathematics Program at Carleton College. We also had Joe Previte (Penn State-Erie) to speak about his department's REU.
- September 2007, The Fall workshop had the theme, "Using Technology in the Classroom." We had five presenters who spoke on a variety of topics: Jon Beal (Clarion University), Voyage 200 and TI-89 projects; Carolyn Cuff (Westminster College), Fathom; Mike McConnell (Clarion University), Tablet PC and Flash movies; Beverly Michael (University of Pittsburgh), Homework Tutor and Smart Board; and Kim Roth
(2002-03) (Juniata College), Clickers.
- April 2007, Rich Marchand,
Slippery Rock University, gave a presentation entitled “Mathematical
Modeling and Ideas for Creating Successful Modeling Contest Teams.” He began with a very interesting
discussion of modeling a violin string, and he concluded with some great
advice about creating and preparing teams for the Mathematical Contest in
Modeling (MCM).
- September 2006, This time the topic for our Fall workshop was
teaching a course in the history of mathematics. In the morning, Doug Faires of Youngstown
State University described a course he has taught, showing the group a lot
of interesting material from the history of mathematics. After
lunch, panelists John Thompson
(1999-2000), University
of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Paul
Gartside, University of Pittsburgh, and Antonella Cupillari,
Penn State-Erie, made short presentations on their own history of math
courses.
- April 2006, James
Sellers, Penn State University, talked about his experiences
supervising undergraduate research in an enthusiastic talk entitled
"Mathematics Research with Undergraduates: Stories of Personal
Success."
- September 2005, The theme of our one-day fall meeting was
mathematical modeling. John
Bukowski
(1998-1999),
Juniata College, led off the day with "An Introduction to
Mathematical Modeling," based on his experiences teaching math
modeling and advising teams in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM).
After a delicious hot lunch, Karen Bolinger,
Clarion University, shared her experiences of judging for the MCM. She
provided helpful insights and led us in evaluating several sample MCM
solution papers.
- April 2005, Joe Gallian,
National Project NExT Co-Coordinator (and from the University of
Minnesota-Duluth), returned to his alma mater, Slippery Rock University,
and gave his famous and inspiring talk, "Getting undergraduates
involved in research", to a room packed with NExTers and invited
guests.
- September 2004, The theme of the meeting was undergraduate research
with a panel and presentations by faculty in our Section. In the morning,
panelists Tami
Lakins
(1995-1996),
Allegheny College, Eric
Rawdon
(1998-1999),
Duquesne University, and Cathy
Stenson
(2001-2002),
Juniata College, described their individual experiences with undergraduate
research. After lunch, Barbara
Faires (Westminster College) and Ron
Harrell (Allegheny College) concluded the meeting with additional
comments regarding their own experiences regarding undergraduate research.
- March 2004, Ed
Burger from Williams College answered our questions on a multitude of
topics, including undergraduate research, attracting math majors, dealing
with unmotivated students, keeping professionally strong, and more. He
reminded us that we are in the business of changing people’s lives, in a
good way.
- September 2003, The theme of the one-day meeting was mathematical
biology. Bard Ermentrout from
the University of Pittsburgh spoke to us in the morning about “Synchrony
in Biology.” After lunch, Jon
Rubin
from
the University of Pittsburgh gave a presentation on “Neurons and
Nullclines.” These talks led to discussions about mathematical modeling,
student projects in mathematical biology, and summer research programs in
mathematical biology.
- April 2003, Annalisa
Crannell from Franklin and Marshall College spoke on strategies for
grading large numbers of essays in mathematics courses.
- September 2002, Doug Ensley
(1994-95) from
Shippensburg University spoke to us about his discrete math project, with
attention to issues about teaching mathematical proof to freshmen, using
technology to illustrate abstract concepts, creating engaging classroom
materials, and getting students involved in undergraduate research.
- April 2002, Joe Gallian
from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, conducted two sessions for
Section NExT prior to the Section meeting at West Liberty State
College: "Getting undergraduates involved in research" and
"Finding your niche." During the meeting, Section NExT
fellows were able to attend the panel discussion "Capstone
experiences," where panelists Karen Bolinger (Clarion),
Carolyn Cuff
(Westminster), and Ron
Harrell (Allegheny) described the capstone experiences at their
institutions.
- September 2001, Nancy Baxter Hastings from Dickinson College lead a
workshop entitled "Changing Direction: Emphasizing Learning,
Not Teaching." The discussion focused on interactive teaching
techniques and the "workshop" approach, as well as assessment
and learning.
- April 2001, the Section NExT grant paid our registration for the MAA grant writing
workshop. We also had a panel discussion called "Planning and
evaluating your career with an eye toward tenure."
- September 2000, Marc
Goulet from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire lead a workshop
on strategies for active learning in the classroom with various group
classroom activities and lots of discussion.
- April 2000, Todd
Will
(1994-95) from Davidson College spoke to us about teaching linear algebra
using technology, in particular, he presented an approach to Singular Value
Decomposition, accessible to students in a sophomore level linear
algebra course.