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Annual Meeting of
the Pacific Northwest Section of
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| Registration | Project NExT | Keynote Speakers | Minicourses | Conference Program |
| Transportation and Lodging Information | Program Committee | Things to do in Helena and Montana |
Minicourses (2:45pm - 5:45pm Thursday, June 19):
- Math is Not Only a Young Man's Game, by Sarah Greenwald
Have you ever had a student who asserted that they do not have the "math gene" or can not do math because they are not a genius? Studies have shown that many people perceive mathematics as a discipline that is done by others rather than people like themselves.
In this interactive minicourse we will look at an overview of recent statistics and research studies on perceptions and success in mathematics, including those related to women mathematicians and mathematicians of African descent. Then we will investigate a variety of ways to utilize these studies to help all of our students connect to mathematics, such as using role models whose style of doing math is identifiable as being similar to the way our students do mathematics. Participants will also have the opportunity to conjecture, throw around ideas, and work on something to take into your own classrooms. There are no prerequisites for this minicourse.
- Active Learning Through Classroom Voting and Clickers, by Kelly Cline, Mark Parker, and Holly Zullo
Have you ever wished that you could design a lesson that would interact with each and every one of your students on an individual basis? Classroom voting is a teaching technique, where the instructor poses a multiple-choice question to the class, gives the students a few minutes to think and discuss the question in small groups, then asks all the students to vote on the correct answer, using an electronic "clicker" or by simply holding up a colored index card (A = red, B = blue, etc.). In order to vote, every single student in the entire class must play an active role, engaging in the question, forming an opinion, discussing it with their peers, and then participating by voting. After the vote, the instructor can guide the class through a Socratic discussion to help them figure out the correct answer. The results of the vote give instant feedback to the instructor as to the state of the class, and feedback to the students as well when the answer is revealed. This pedagogy can powerfully transform a classroom into a much more student-centered learning environment. When students who have participated in a voting class are surveyed, we find that strong majorities prefer learning in this way: They think that it is a lot of fun and that it helps them enjoy the class more, they believe that it helps them learn, and if given the choice between two sections of a class, they would choose the one with classroom voting. In this minicourse, we will show you how we have used this technique in our own classes, in calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and other classes. We will demonstrate how we have been able to integrate voting into our daily lesson plans while maintaining the same pace, teaching the same syllabi and giving the same types of exams. We will give you the resources necessary to use voting in your own classes, including libraries of classroom voting questions, and the latest education research that shows you how to use this technique most effectively. (Based on research and materials developed with NSF DUE grant 0536077.)