University of Louisiana at Lafayette

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Contact Roger Waggoner
rwag@louisiana.edu
337-482-5286
      

EC2 INSTITUTE

Enhancing Content for Comprehension
in Undergraduate Mathematics


University of Louisiana at Lafayette
May 18 - 19, 2011


Christina Eubanks-Turner, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Title: Starting a Math Teachers' Circle: The Story of the Acadiana Math Teachers' Circle
Abstract:In this talk I will discuss the process of starting a teacher's circle. In particular, I will speak about the goal of a teachers' circle, common components of every teachers' circle and funding.


Donna Fatheree , University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Title: Calculus: Average Value of a Function, What Does It Mean?
Abstract: We will discuss an example that I use in Calculus I to introduce the concept of average value of a function. Students get involved in the discussion. We will also look in your text where there are probably problems that you can use as activities for this concept.


Diane Fisher, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Title: Statistics: Will I Ever Use This Again?
Abstract:A real life legal case is used as an introductory lesson for an elementary statistics course. Examples of descriptive statistics, probability, and inference are used to help determine whether or not the accused nurse killed her patients.


Kathleen Lopez , University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Title: My Secret Function
Abstract:“My Secret Function” activity is used to help students learn to perform operations on functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and composition) - whether the function is represented symbolically, numerically, or graphically. Moreover, the use of a variety of functions allows this activity to serve as a review for some prerequisite mathematics.


Bernard L. Madison, University of Arkansas
Title: Mathematical Reasoning for Citizenship
Abstract: Historian Pat Cohen’s book, A Calculating People: The Spread of Numeracy in Early America, provides only a hint of the quantitative demands that have been thrust on US society in the ensuing couple of centuries. These are fueled by the requirements of a democratic government, a freewheeling and volatile economy, and the high costs of health and prosperity, to say nothing of the demands of the workplace. The response from US education has been ineffective, if not irresponsible, providing a striking analog of the two cultures of C. P. Snow a half century ago. Over the past decade, I have studied what Carnevale and Desrochers (Democratization of Mathematics) called the “cognitive soup of words and numbers,” that is, quantitative reasoning. This presentation will focus on what I have learned about some features of effective quantitative reasoning courses and programs.


Michael Starbird, The University of Texas at Austin
Title: The Other Lessons: What Students Keep for Life
Abstract: "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."-B.F. Skinner. The vast majority of our students soon forget the vast majority of the mathematical details they learn in class-(sometimes, in fact, before the final). But mathematical analysis has produced some of the greatest triumphs of human thought and creativity. Let's design our courses and curricula so that what survives in our students, after they forget, clearly improves their lives. Let's make students' mathematics course the most important course they take to help them develop their ability to think.