A Collaborative Project to Increase the Participation of Women and Minorities In Higher Level Mathematics Courses

In this article, the authors describe a program developed to encourage women and minorities to continue their study of mathematics in high schools until graduation. The 3- year program was a collaborative effort by professors and students from Bryant University, local businesses, and local high schools. During the 3 years, the program evolved from the development and presentation of reality-based mathematical modules taught in the high school classrooms to an interdisciplinary enrichment activity at Bryant University. The university students acted as mentors or tutors to the high school students. Throughout the program, the business representatives, university personnel, and high school teachers collaborated to bring mathematics alive to the students through real-world applications

Fun with Math on Valentine\u27s Day

This article describes various love-themed activities the department of mathematics at Bryant University hosted during a college-wide celebration of love called The Arts and Science of Love , held during Valentine\u27s Day 2018. Inspired by Susan D\u27Agustino\u27s article To Fall in Love with Math, Do This [1], Bryant mathematicians came up with many creative and engaging activities that brought mathematics and its practitioners closer to the students on campus. Much fun was had

Paying students for grades: Is it sustainable and should it be?

This paper highlights some of the most notable cash incentive programs, questions why the flow of money into these programs is not totally transparent and well known to the taxpayers who fund some of them, and reviews literature on the psychological, motivational, and ethical issues surrounding this policy. We would like to question how much public funding is being spent, especially since towns and school systems are struggling in these difficult financial times with miniscule operating budgets

Examining the Effect of Personal Classroom Friendships with Online Learning

Friendships within learning environments have been established as valuable aspects of supporting student success. The literature clearly shows that: 1) a student can achieve a better grade depending on how he/she perceives the task in terms of level of difficulty, and 2) a student can perceive the level of difficulty to be more or less difficult, depending on who is in the room with him/her during the task. If task difficulty can be linked to perceived friendships in the room, then fostering friendships in a classroom could play a crucial role to improving performance. As universities continue to embrace online formats, an important question becomes how can friendships be fostered to improve student performance? We surveyed students at Bryant University to study this question. The students had completed the same marketing course, in either a traditional classroom setting, or as an online course, taught by the same professor during the same semester. Students were asked about their perceptions of the course and performance, as well as their interaction with each other and the instructor. We found that this course was able to foster friendships, despite the format, and that students themselves perceived this as a component of their own success

Changing the Order of Mathematics Test Items: Helping or Hindering Student Performance?

This paper recounts an experiment by a mathematics professor who primarily teaches mathematics majors. The main question explored is whether the ordering of the questions makes a difference as to how students perform in a test. More specifically we focus here on the following research questions:\ (1) Does arranging a math test with easy-to-hard items versus hard-to-easy items impact student performance? and (2) If so, does item order impact male and female mathematics majors and non-majors in unique ways? We examine data collected over multiple semesters with several different classes. We find that for most of the mathematics students who were examined, the ordering of the questions on a test did not impact performance. However, female majors performed better on classroom exams when the test was arranged with the more difficult questions presented first. Readers who are interested in teaching mathematics, educational psychology, or gender issues in the classroom may find our results intriguing

Complex and Varied: Factors Related to the Research Productivity of Academic Librarians in the United States

Academic librarians face multiple barriers in conducting the research that is expected in their work, yet they still manage to successfully complete it. This study aimed to identify the factors that contribute to their success. Through an online survey sent via email to a random sample of academic librarians in the United States, we gathered and analyzed quantitative data about education and experience, demographics, success factor statements, and research productivity to determine which factors are related to increased research output. We found that three categories of factors—Individual Attributes, Peers and Community, and Institutional Structures and Supports—contribute positively to overall research output. We identified several elements that academic librarians may want to pursue to increase research productivity, with Peers and Community identified as a category for exploration. Overall, we found that academic librarians are highly motivated to conduct research, yet the factors leading to their success are complex and varied

Complex and Varied: Factors Related to the Research Productivity of Academic Librarians in the United States

Academic librarians face multiple barriers in conducting the research that is expected in their work, yet they still manage to successfully complete it. This study aimed to identify the factors that contribute to their success. Through an online survey sent via email to a random sample of academic librarians in the United States, we gathered and analyzed quantitative data about education and experience, demographics, success factor statements, and research productivity to determine which factors are related to increased research output. We found that three categories of factors—Individual Attributes, Peers and Community, and Institutional Structures and Supports—contribute positively to overall research output. We identified several elements that academic librarians may want to pursue to increase research productivity, with Peers and Community identified as a category for exploration. Overall, we found that academic librarians are highly motivated to conduct research, yet the factors leading to their success are complex and varied