Writing Math Lessons That Integrate Christian Beliefs: The Kuyers Institute Grant Project

In this paper, we describe multiple math lessons designed to incorporate a Christian perspective. A total of nine lessons, some with materials for multiple class sessions, will soon be published by the Kuyers Institute. These lessons are appropriate for use at the middle school and high school level

A Christian Constructivist? The Impact of Worldview on Learning Theories and the Mathematics Education Research Community

This paper analyzes the role of worldview and its impact on learning theories within the mathematics education research community. The authors propose a scholarly agenda for engaging this issue in future research projects

The Topology of Harry Potter: Exploring Higher Dimensions in Young Adult Fantasy Literature

As one of the most beloved series in children’s literature today, the Harry Potter books excite students of all ages with the adventures of living in a magical world. Magical objects (e.g., bottom-less handbags, the Knight Bus, time turners, and moving portraits) can inspire generalizations to mathematical concepts that would be relevant in an undergraduate geometry or topology course. Intuitive explanations for some of the magical objects connect to abstract mathematical ideas. Weoffer a typology with a total of five categories, including Three Dimensions in Two Dimensions, Higher Dimensions in Three Dimensions, Two and Three Dimensional Movement, Higher Dimensional Movement, and Higher Dimensional Traces. These categories attempt to explain supernatural events from the wizarding world using mathematical reasoning in order to increase engagement in topics from topology to differential geometry. Our pedagogical goal is to pique student interest by linking these abstract concepts to familiar examples from the world of Harry Potter. Put on your Ravenclaw robe or Gryffindor scarf and join us

Factors that Motivate Students to Learn Mathematics

What motivates some students to want to learn mathematics while others do not share similar motivation? Are these factors intrinsic, extrinsic, or a combination of both? To answer these questions, we adapted a survey originally developed by Tapia (1996) and later shortened by Lim and Chapman (2015). We administered the survey in multiple middle schools, a high school, and multiple colleges and universities. We obtained over 100 completed surveys for each of these educational levels. This presentation offers an analysis of these data, including descriptive statistics and confidence intervals for each educational level. For the college and university sample, we also provide comparisons among students majoring in mathematics or mathematics education, those majoring in elementary education, and those with a variety of other majors. In addition to the Likert scale items from the original survey, we explore qualitative data from a free response item. Join us to learn more about why students enjoy learning mathematics and later choose undergraduate majors in the discipline

Integrating dynamic software into geometry courses at middle school, high school, and college levels: Ten lesson plan and instruction material units incorporating Geometer\u27s Sketchpad Version 4.07

This paper explores the use of dynamic geometry software (Geometer\u27s Sketchpad) in the teaching and learning of Geometry at the high school and college level. As part of an honors project, two of the authors created a series of lesson activities to address specific geometric concepts. Each lesson implements Geometer\u27s Sketchpad to create an engaging student-centered learning environment

Service-Learning Panel

Many of us have wanted to incorporate service experiences in courses, or are being asked by our institutions to do so. Service-learning is a way of looking at service as being a partner with and leading to learning for our students. But in math, there are not a lot of resources to use! Our panelists will present classroom-tested ideas from several different levels of course, and we will end with a short time for more brainstorming among all participants

Start a Math Teacher Circle: Connect K-12 Teachers with Engaging, Approachable, and Meaningful Mahtematical Problems

Many K-12 math teachers are not ready to teach from a conceptual and inquiry-oriented pe

Start a Math Teacher Circle: Connect K-12 Teachers with Engaging, Approachable, and Meaningful Mathematical Problems

Many K-12 math teachers are not ready to teach from a conceptual and inquiry-oriented perspective because they have an algorithmic understanding of mathematics. One solution is to create a math teacher circle (MTC), which provides conceptual and inquiry-based learning activities and builds professionalism among the teachers. In this paper, we describe the origins of two such MTCs, highlighting the process of identifying leadership team members, submitting the grant proposal for seed money, and hosting launch events, intensive summer workshops, and monthly meetings during the academic year. We also share opportunities for professional development for college and university faculty, including research linked to shifts in in-service teacher attitudes. We finish the paper with several of this year’s best activities used at our MTC meetings, including fair division, extensions and generalizations of numerical and algebraic patterns, and applications in cryptography

Integrating Moral and Spiritual Themes in Middle School and High School Mathematics Teaching Units

In 2006, the Kuyers Institute published a total of nine math lessons for the middle school and high school which incorporate a Christian perspective. This paper examines the impact of teaching all of these lessons at a the high school level as well as selected lessons at the college level with preservice elementary and secondary mathematics teachers

Using Graphic Novels in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics and Physics

Are you looking for innovative teaching strategies for geometry or other mathematics and physics courses? In this article, we offer a discussion of several graphic novels and their potential for successful teaching and learning at the high school and university levels. We describe how engaging stories, combined with mathematical and scientific meaning found in both text and image, can help to excite students, enrich learning, and explain mathematical concepts. We report on recent data collected from multiple mathematics and physics classes that extend prior research on the use of graphic novels to teach English Language Arts (Boerman-Cornell and Kim, 2020) and will inform a book focused on the STEM disciplines that is currently in development (Boerman-Cornell, Ho, Klanderman, and Klanderman, in press)