Introduction to the Special Issue on Interdisciplinary Conversations (Part 2): The Impact of Interdisciplinary Conversations on Courses

The two parts in this special issue address interdisciplinary conversations involving mathematics courses in the first 2 years of undergraduate work. The special issue was inspired by work funded by the National Science Foundation under a grant titled “SUMMIT-P.” The special issue includes papers written about projects both from SUMMIT-P and from outside of SUMMIT-P. Part II focuses on what the results of interdisciplinary collaboration look like in the classroom

Structured Engagement for a Multi-Institutional Collaborative to Tackle Challenges and Share Best Practices

A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships (SUMMIT-P), funded by the National Science Foundation, is a multi-institutional consortium with members from twelve institutions. The consortium adapted two protocols developed by the School Reform Initiative to: 1. provide advice on challenges or dilemmas a consortium member is facing and 2. share project successes with consortium members. The two protocols—a Modified Descriptive Consultancy protocol and a Modified Success Analysis with Reflective Questions protocol—provide a structured format for these discussions. This paper provides an in-depth description of the two protocols and how they have been used for this project. Examples demonstrating the impact of the protocols are provided by the co-authors

Fishbowl Discussions: Promoting Collaboration between Mathematics and Partner Disciplines

A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships project (SUMMIT-P) is a collaboration of institutions focused on revising first- and second-year mathematics courses with the help of partner disciplines with prerequisite mathematics courses. This paper describes the fishbowl discussion technique used by the consortium members to encourage interdisciplinary conversation. Vignettes describing the results of conversations that occurred at several consortium member institutions are provided by the co-authors

Fishbowl Discussions: Promoting Collaboration between Mathematics and Partner Disciplines

A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships project (SUMMIT-P) is a collaboration of institutions focused on revising first- and second-year mathematics courses with the help of partner disciplines with prerequisite mathematics courses. This paper describes the fishbowl discussion technique used by the consortium members to encourage interdisciplinary conversation. Vignettes describing the results of conversations that occurred at several consortium member institutions are provided by the co-authors

A Method for Proxying a Respondent's Religious Background: An Application to School Choice Decisions

This paper develops an algorithm for the probability distribution of a respondent's religion in microdata (including the decennial census) in which there are data on ancestry but not on religion. A frequency distribution of religion by ancestry is generated from the General Social Survey and matched by ancestry groups in the U.S. decennial census. The fruitfulness of the procedure is demonstrated through an analysis of the effect of alternative measures of religion on the household's choice of public versus private schooling for children. This method is useful to any researcher wanting to distinguish religious affiliation when only ancestry data are available.

An Analysis of Foreclosure Activity in the United States

This paper has analyzed the foreclosure rates of US counties over an 18 month period beginning in January 2007 and ending in June 2008. Population, home and loan attributes of counties all had a statistically significant bearing on foreclosure rates. Specifically, subprime loans, the employment rate and housing price declines were correlated with higher foreclosure rates. Racial and ethnic differences did have a negative effect on foreclosure rates but were much smaller in magnitude

E50K Team: Leif Anderson

II. What is E-Learning?.................................................................................................. 1 III. Efficacy of E- Learning.............................................................................................