Blogs

IMPACT Plus - Using Peter Liljedahl’s Research to Foster Student Ownership: A Rich Problem Example

By Dennis Ebersole posted 5 days ago
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According to the IMPACT, faculty can foster student ownership through three tasks: 1) by “providing students with open-ended questions or utilizing inquiry-based learning” allowing students to discover concepts (page 32), 2) by supporting students to develop meaning through productive struggle (page 33), and 3) by providing the “opportunity for transfer of ownership, practice, and application to [the] student” (page 32). In his book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics Peter Liljedahl listed 14 practices teachers can use to increase mathematical thinking by students and thus enhance learning: Types of tasks to use ...
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IMPACTful Thoughts -Moving the Plan Forward: Developing Student Ownership

By Karen Gaines posted 12 days ago
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Happy Anniversary! One year ago IMPACT Live! Spotlight of the Month was launched on myAMATYC. Over the past year we have started many thought-provoking conversations on the subjects of ownership, engagement, equity, statistics, international mathematics, pathways, corequisites, standards, professional development, research, and leadership. On this one year anniversary, I would like to move forward on the call I made to start a revolution in the original IMPACTful Thoughts post “ You Say You Want an (Education) Revolution: Student Ownership of Learning is the Key” . In that blog, the focus was on understanding what student ownership of learning ...
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IMPACT Plus - Using reflections to develop ownership of learning and SoTL to take ownership of teaching

By Rheannin Becke posted 19 days ago
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As a Transitional Studies Math instructor, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can get my students to engage with the process of becoming better math students and take ownership of their learning. The class I most frequently teach bridges directly from our Transitional Studies Math to the college-level course Math and Society, which is the last math course many students need in order to fulfill their math requirements for an AA degree. The students in this course have a variety of goals including improving English skills, getting a high school diploma, and transitioning to Math Department courses. These students often need extra support around how to ...
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IMPACT Plus - Taking Collective Ownership over Improving Student Learning using Lesson Study

By Susan Bickerstaff posted 27 days ago
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Despite long-standing calls for improving student learning in developmental mathematics, the widespread developmental education reform movement focuses very little on supporting faculty to adopt new pedagogical practices. To fill this gap, the Community College Research Center (CCRC), Education Northwest , and mathematics faculty at three community colleges in Oregon collaborated on a project to adapt lesson study, a professional development approach used in K-12 mathematics, for use in higher education. We collected survey, observational, and interview data on lesson study implementation and its influence on faculty teaching practice in ...
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IMPACT Plus #2 - Teaching students to make sense of mathematical symbolism

By Claire Wladis posted 05-10-2021
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We know that students struggle with abstract mathematical symbolism at all levels, starting in elementary school, and continuing through various levels in college. Students often work with symbols as though the goal were to move them around on the page in order to satisfy arbitrary rules. These are rules they have adopted from their prior instructional experiences without really understanding how, why, or when they work. Students may even believe that it is not possible to understand the rules that they use—they may view the procedures like allowed chess moves, something that experts know and which must be memorized, but that cannot be derived or explained on ...
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IMPACT Plus #1 - Community College Faculty Ownership of Research Impacts Practice

By Dexter Lim posted 05-03-2021
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Author(s): Dexter Lim, Bismark Akoto, Irene M. Duranczyk Algebra Instruction at Community Colleges (AI@CC) 1.0 and 2.0 are collaborative faculty research projects engaging community college researchers and practitioners with university research faculty and resources. Our first project sought to investigate the relationship between two characteristics of mathematics instruction at the community college level: (1) quality of teacher-student interaction and (2) quality of mathematics with student learning gains and course performance in community college algebra courses. For this IMPACT Plus blog, the focus will be on our framework for characterizing ...
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IMPACTful Thoughts - Using Research to Take Ownership of Our Teaching

By Ann Sitomer posted 04-30-2021
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Welcome to this month’s conversation hosted by members of AMATYC’s Research Community. Each week, we will introduce the community to one current research project focused on teaching mathematics at two-year colleges with research findings hot off the presses. The underlying theme for each blog post on IMPACT Plus is using research findings as a way to take ownership of our teaching. For example, in the second week of May, our colleague Claire Wladis will share some of her research on two-year college students’ algebraic symbol sense and essential algebraic understandings, such as the concept of equivalence. As an instructor, I am able to use what ...
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Diversity Dialogues - History of Arab Mathematics during Islam's Golden Age and of Two of Its Mathematicians

By Marilyn Mays posted 04-29-2021
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The history of Arabic and Islamic culture and the history of the development of theories and practices in mathematics and science during the 8th-12th centuries greatly overlap or are the same in many instances. These areas of learning and accomplishment that had been the purview of the Greeks and then, later, the more practical culture of the Romans, were taken over to much of a degree by the Arabs who came into Southern Europe and Northern Africa from the east, led and unified by, among others, the prophet Mohammed. The Arabs settled down rather quickly and, unlike many conquering nations, proceeded to learn about and build on the works of the nations they had ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Mathematically Gifted and Black

By Stewart Mitchell posted 04-18-2021
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In December 2016, Erica Graham, Raegan Higgins, Shelby Wilson, and Candice Price had a conference call discussing the creation of a website that would highlight the contributions and lives of Black mathematicians. Inspired by the work of Lathisms and emboldened by the film Hidden Figures , they created the website “Mathematically Gifted and Black.” The name not only pays homage to the song so well known and loved within the Black community but is itself a tribute to those whose story may never have been told. Mathematically Gifted & Black honors a different Black Mathematician every day each February. One such honoree is Brittany Mosby, an accomplished ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Ruth Gonzalez

By Marilyn Mays posted 04-17-2021
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The First Known Hispanic Female Mathematician in The United States We are learning through popular media that many significant contributions to science and mathematics have been made by African American women, a fact most of us had not been aware of until recently. Black female mathematicians made many major contributions to education and industry in the U.S., but most notable were their efforts and success in the space race. Knowing this might make one curious—what else don’t we know about the history of mathematics and mathematicians? Particularly about the contributions of any groups of people that we don’t usually associate with math history—women. ...
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IMPACT Plus - Leadership’s Role in Creating Faculty Ownership of Professional Development

By Behnaz Rouhani posted 04-12-2021
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As colleges and universities have shifted more resources toward faculty professional development to demonstrate their commitment to student learning outcomes, the field of professional development faces the question of how to motivate and engage faculty. Much of the research in this area indicates that professional development initiatives should focus on developing a culture of faculty learning (Condon, Iverson, Manduca, Rutz, & Willett, 2016) and better equip them for additional administrative responsibilities. Faculty gain a greater sense of loyalty and put forth greater effort to increase their effectiveness when they are part of the information process. ...
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IMPACTful Thoughts - The IMPACT of Leaderships’ Role in Providing Professional Development

By Chris Ward posted 04-02-2021
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Over the past year, we have all been taxed in various ways, but our goal has always been, and still is, to provide the best learning environment for our students. Now, with the requirements, restrictions, and many other hurdles brought on by the pandemic we are at a precipice on how to accomplish this goal. The IMPACT document suggests that this is best achieved through the second pillar of PROWESS, ownership. We are going to explore ownership this month, as it relates to how divisional/departmental and institutional leadership can take ownership using various tools such as professional development (PD) to support that goal. The IMPACT document ...
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IMPACT Plus - Five Ways to Promote Student Engagement in a Statistics Course

By Karen Gaines posted 03-19-2021
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Posted on behalf of: Student engagement…we all want it, we all talk about it, we know it’s an essential part of learning and student success, but what exactly is it ? When I was asked to write a post about student engagement in a statistics classroom, I had all sorts of ideas of what can be done, but I took a step back and thought: what exactly is student engagement in a classroom? So…I’m going to get you engaged in this post about engagement. :) How would you define or describe student engagement in the classroom? What comes to mind? [Pause here and come up with an example or two before reading on.]** **In all honesty, I had ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Sister Mary de Lellis Gough

By Marilyn Mays posted 03-19-2021
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Sister Mary de Lellis Gough: The First Irish Woman with a Doctorate in Maths March was designated as Women’s History Month in the United States in 1985. Six years later, the same month was chosen, not by accident, as Irish-American History Month. March 17 was already very important to many Irish everywhere as St. Patrick’s Day. What first comes to mind when one thinks of the Emerald Isle is usually shamrocks and fish and chips or, for those more concerned with erudition, scholars such as James Joyce or Oscar Wilde. But it should be noted that the country has well-known scholars in many fields, including mathematics. While there were men pursuing ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Sadie Bragg

By Marilyn Mays posted 03-14-2021
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Sadie Bragg’s history as a mathematician of note is not ancient history. In the case of most community college faculty, their place in history comes not from research or work on mathematics per se, but from their efforts to reach more people with the knowledge of mathematics they need to be a contributing member of the community or to pursue a career. Dr. Bragg was President of AMATYC from 1998 through 1999 and was the first, and at this date, only African American to serve in that position. She promoted the community college here in the United States and, to some degree, globally. Sadie served on the AMATYC board from 1994 through 2001. She was president of ...
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Diversity Dialogues - David Harold Blackwell

By Marilyn Mays posted 03-02-2021
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David Harold Blackwell, First African American Member of National Academy of Science By Marilyn Mays David Harold Blackwell, an African American mathematician, was born to a railroad worker and his wife in an integrated community in Centralia, IL, in 1910. As a young student, he attended mixed schools where he demonstrated considerable intellect and, as an adult, broke many racial barriers in mathematics and statistics and related fields, including game theory , probability theory , information theory , and Bayesian statistics . He received numerous awards and recognitions, but not the least of them was being the first ...
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IMPACTful Thoughts - Engaging Students in Statistics and Data Science

By Mark Earley posted 03-02-2021
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Statistics and data science courses have often been described as full of student engagement opportunities. As the information age advances, data, graphs, and statistics have become an everyday staple on every Internet and social media platform available. Our students need to be able to understand and discuss this statistical information in appropriate ways so they can make informed decisions and develop informed opinions about various issues. I believe our grand goal is always to develop more statistically literate citizens. IMPACT (2018) guides us in the implementation of student-centered learning environments that engage students: “Students should ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Lonnie Johnson

By Marilyn Mays posted 02-22-2021
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Lonnie Johnson, NASA Engineer, and Toy Inventor By Marilyn Mays, Ph.D. Lonnie Johnson talking about global energy and environmental challenges as part of the Office of Naval Research's 70th Anniversary Edition Distinguished Lecture Series in February 2016. US Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released If you are a fan of video or board games with sophisticated logic, then you probably realize that many games are developed using mathematical axioms and theorems as well as principals from physics. But how about toys? Have you heard of one that was developed by a mathematician as a byproduct of his employment? Did you ever have the fun of ...
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IMPACT Plus - Global Learning and Mathematics Literature Suggestions

By Barbara Leitherer posted 02-15-2021
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Global Learning and Mathematics Literature Suggestions Barbara Leitherer Professor of Mathematics at CCBC, Maryland bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu I took a holistic approach when I created this list of peer-reviewed publications, discussion papers, articles, and websites as I am trying to bridge the fields of global education and mathematics. You will find the research angle covered, ideas presented for globalizing the curriculum, for teaching mathematics with “cultural eyes”, and for gaining an employment edge in the ever changing work place of the 21 st century. 1. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2016) PISA 2015 ...
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Diversity Dialogues - Katherine Johnson

By Jon Oaks posted 02-10-2021
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Katherine Johnson, Mathematician, and Spaceflight Analyst Portrait of Katherine Johnson Credits: NASA “If you can see one, you can be one.” Maybe you have heard that recently. If young people have an opportunity to see someone who looks like them in an activity or profession, they are much more likely to aspire to preparing themselves for that activity. Many of us in our profession were thrilled a few years ago to learn that there was a movie released, Hidden Figures , about three mathematicians in the dawn of the space age. That the mathematicians were female and African American was more than exciting. Katherine Johnson was one of the ...
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