Leveraging Interdisciplinary Expertise in Developing an Alternative Mathematics Pathway

How many instructors does it take for amazing course design? Or perhaps we should begin with “A mathematician, humanist, communication expert and statistician walk into a bar.” This unlikely team has co-developed a pair of courses, Learning to Reason I: Art and Quotient and Learning to Reason II: Commerce and Flux, that deeply investigate quantitative reasoning from multiple perspectives. Blending elements of rhetoric, logic, and history with mathematical computation, representation, and application breaks through the perceived barriers between the unyielding, obstinate world of mathematics and the ambiguous, equivocal world of the humanities. Developing the courses as an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians and humanists has brought together multiple ways of reasoning and habits of mind that present students with experiences in critical thinking involving both numbers and words. These innovative courses investigate such diverse topics as the history of mathematics, ethics and statistics, mathematical art, logical fallacies, fun with spreadsheets, personal economics, communicating quantitatively, and even origami. These courses also provide an alternative mathematics pathway for students in our programs for which calculus is not required. This paper will examine this unique interdisciplinary course development experience that uses an asynchronous online modality to deliver content to students around the world

Humanistic STEM: From Concept to Course

Blending perspectives from the humanities and STEM fosters the creativity of all students. The culturally implicit dichotomy between the two meta-disciplines can be overcome with carefully designed courses and programs intent on doing so. The why and how of doing so through an online course is described with qualitative evidence of the success. Future plans for a full slate of such course and a virtual community are discussed

A Field Study: An Examination Of Managers’ Situational Leadership Styles

The present study explored the applicable situational leadership styles of experienced military managers attending an advanced leadership educational program. While attending this program, these managers were requested to reveal the results of their situational leadership self-assessment in which they participated. A total of 620 managers agreed to reveal their results, and descriptive statistics were conducted to determine the findings of their situational leadership self-assessments. The study research results revealed two situational leadership styles were predominating: (Telling and Participating). The findings of research study have significant implications for managers when leading individuals and teams for organizational success. These findings also may contribute to better understanding of the situational leadership styles which characterize managers when leading people and team members. Additionally, the findings of this study also have implications for teaching situational leadership skills in a variety of settings to include educational leadership programs such as the one reported here

What Is Humanistic STEM and Why Do We Need It?

Getting students who are planning on technical careers to value their general education courses, particularly in the humanities, is not an easy task. The experiences of two professors from disciplines that cross the so-called divide between STEM and Humanities motivate not only a series of courses blending the two to the advantage of their own students but also a virtual pedagogical community to support efforts taking place elsewhere

A Field Study to Promote Undergraduate Student Learning Through Inquiry-Based Research

The purpose of this study was to explore methods to promote effective undergraduate student learning through inquiry-based research in the classroom and to determine what the benefits of doing so might be. The study begins by outlining how undergraduate inquiry-based research increases the undergraduate student learning model and then lists steps to accomplish this process. The study outlines two options offered as a workable process to promote faculty and student inquiry-based in-class research. The first option is for undergraduate students to engage in inquiry-based research with the assistance of one-on- one mentoring by the instructor. The second option allows for teams of students to do research with the assistance of mentoring by the instructor. The results of this current study concluded that an undergraduate inquiry-based research program benefits students and faculty in several ways as described in this paper. The study findings may contribute to a better understanding of how colleges and universities can further promote undergraduate learning in the classroom though student-centered, inquiry-based research

A Study of Video-Mediated Opportunities for Self-Directed Learning in Required Core Curriculum

Improving a required course in our curriculum that has proven to be a challenge for our students was the focus of this study. Surveys of both students and instructors attempted to identify specific problem areas. Using the information from these surveys, the researchers developed a series of videos to explain vital course concepts and deployed these into the course sections. The purpose of the videos is to provide consistency across the multiple modalities in which we offer our courses (including online, classroom and via videoconferencing) and to improve overall student understanding. This project seeks to determine how supplemental content focusing on material identified as “difficult,” by students and instructors, can impact student performance. Challenges include the deployment of the videos across various modalities and obtaining sufficient student feedback

Personality Types of Master of Science in Project Management Students: A Field Study

In this research study, students enrolled in a university Master of Science in Project Management degree program were asked to respond to the Big Five personality inventory to ascertain whether their personality traits were in alignment with Big Five Leadership profile proposed by Lussier and Achua (2013) or were ranked similarly with the general population. Additionally, this study sought to explore whether university project management master degree students’ Big Five personalities were aligned with the suggested Big Five profile for project managers. The ranking of the Big Five leadership categories of 172 project management students was compared to rankings in previous studies. It was observed that the Big Five rankings of project management students differed in order from both the Lussier and Achua (2013) leadership profile as well as multiple studies conducted within the general population. However, the project management student rankings were consistent with recommended rankings for project managers. The findings can contribute to better understanding the traits that characterize students studying in the project management field of occupation

Project Manager Leadership Behavior: Task-Oriented Versus Relationship-Oriented

In this paper, we examined managers’ leadership behavior when working on a simulated team project regarding task-oriented versus relationship-oriented leadership behavior to effectively achieve successful project completion. Managers attending an advanced project management development program responded to the Fielder Leadership Behavior Style Self-Assessment, which is a useful framework to determine task-oriented versus relationship-oriented leadership behavioral styles. The degree of task-oriented versus relationship-oriented leadership behavior styles was assessed to determine the approach taken by the managers for achieving successful project completion. A Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to determine whether the observed values were significantly different from an expected value of five. The findings can contribute to better understanding the leadership styles, which characterize project management accomplishment

An Insight to Project Manager Personality Traits Improving Team Project Outcomes

Individual personality assessments tools have a strong following among Fortune 100 companies.[1] Besides being used for hiring purposes, individual personality assessment tools give project managers insight into personality and aspirations, as well as how they process and organize information, make decisions, and interact with team members and other stakeholders. The aim of this research study was to explore what personality traits project managers need to lead a project team effectively. To accomplish this, we employed the Big Five Personality® and the 1/11 Myers-Briggs (MBTI®) personality assessments to identify favorable personality traits and characteristics when managing projects