Discovering the Art of Mathematics has a busy lineup of summer workshops and presentations. We encourage you to consider joining us. We will keep rolling along this fall with a workshop and poster at the AMATYC national conference in Anaheim, CA in October. Be sure to check out our booth at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, MD in January!
Summer workshops and presentations include:
Legacy of R.L. Moore Conference
June 13-15 in Austin, TX
Julian F. Fleron and Philip K. Hotchkiss
Topic: Mathematical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts
Abstract: Curious about how to empower general education mathematics students using inquiry-based learning? Are you ready to have non-majors report, “I have to admit, I have never had a class like this, where learning is the most important factor”? If so, please join us.
This 90-minute, hands-on workshop is sponsored by Discovering the Art of Mathematics, a National Science Foundation and Harry Lucas funded project. Specific foci for the workshop include:
- Experiencing what inquiry can feel like and look like in a mathematics for liberal arts course by working through selected mathematical topics from the project’s extensive library of free, inquiry-based curriculum materials;
- Investigating the breadth of the curriculum library’s content areas (using the online Topic Index for the project) to find topics that resonate with your students and connect with your general education course missions,
- Glimpsing the potential for transformative change through student journals and videos, survey data, students’ written work, original student artwork, and feedback from external beta-testers, and
- Reflecting on opportunities these resources provide for creating a classroom environment where productive, safe, and deep mathematical inquiry can take place.
PREP IBL Workshop
June 24-27 in San Luis Obispo, CA
Attendees of the IBL workshop are highly encouraged to select a target course that they will teach in the academic year following the workshop. Course materials sessions allow attendees an opportunity to develop materials specific to their teaching style and students. Attendees are welcome to focus on courses such as courses preceding Calculus, Calculus, Math for Liberal Arts, Math for Secondary or Elementary Teaching, Statistics, and second-year Calculus Courses (Differential Equations, Linear Algebra).
Christine von Renesse and Volker Ecke will lead the Special Focus Group on IBL in Mathematics for Liberal Arts courses. Members of the Discovering the Art of Mathematics and Mathematics for Liberal Arts group at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, they have developed a significant number of IBL course materials for "Math for Liberal Arts," that can be used as an entire course or supplements to an existing course. Instructors interested in developing an IBL courses will be able to work directly with Volker and Chrissi. They are also excited to share with workshop participants their interest and expertise in using "Math Talk" to support student reasoning in the classroom.
MAA MathFest
July 31- August 3 in Hartford, CT
Christine von Renesse and Volker Ecke
Topic: Asking Good Questions to Promote Inquiry and Mathematical Conversations
Abstract:
In this interactive workshop participants will be using actual conversations from a classroom to find and discuss different kinds of questions a professor could ask. Good questions promote deeper thinking, clarify student’s reasoning, reveal contradictions, or stimulate participation and discussion among students.
Conversations can take place as a whole class, in a smaller group or just between the professor and the student. Each situation requires slightly different skill sets. Is it possible to “classify” the different kinds of questions one can ask, so that we can create a library of questions from which to choose when we want to support mathematical conversations and inquiry?
Our work on the use of questions has grown out of broader effort on promoting student inquiry. At Westfield State University we successfully use inquiry-based materials and techniques to engage students in mathematics. In our project “Discovering the Art of Mathematics” (https://www.artofmathematics.org/), we are now developing teacher materials and offering workshops making our best practices explicit through vignettes, videos and reflections on our own teaching.
MoMath MOVES Conference
August 4-6 at Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in New York City
Julian Fleron
Topic: Radon-Kaczmarz Puzzles: CAT Scans Meet Sudoku
Abstract:
This is an interactive presentation about an original family of Sudoku-like puzzles which we call Radon-Kaczmarz puzzles. These puzzles are integrally related to the mathematics that underlies CAT scans and other forms of medical imaging. Exploring this relationship will lead to interesting history and open mathematical questions.