Undergraduate faculty who are interested in teaching with interdisciplinary materials will build cross-disciplinary partnerships and work together on materials to use in teaching courses at their home institutions. Faculty will attend in institutional teams of 2-4 with at least one team member representing mathematics and at least one team member representing physics.
Workshop sessions will be interactive and hands-on using materials developed through the National Science Foundation's Mathematical Sciences and their Applications across the Curriculum program, also known as Mathematics across the Curriculum (MATC). The NSF program is managed by the Division of Undergraduate Education and has funded seven major projects.
At this time, representatives of the Montana Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation, also funded by NSF/DUE, have been invited to conduct a workshop session on developing and teaching curriculum in mathematics and physics so as to address the needs of prospective mathematics and science teachers as well as other students in the classes.
During the six-day workshop blocks of time will be reserved for teams to work on developing and adapting materials for use in courses at their home institutions. Some free time will be devoted to enjoying the area and a riverboat cruise is scheduled for one afternoon.
Four interrelated workshops will provide focus for the week's work. Workshops A and B will run throughout the week and comprise most of the week's work. Workshops C and D will run for two sessions each.
Workshop A: "Multimedia Mathematics: Preparing for Paperless Instruction in Science and Mathematics Education"
Materials developed through the University of Nebraska-Oklahoma State University-led Multimedia Mathematics (MMATC) project.
Workshop Leaders:
Robert Fuller, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, director of the research in physics education group and recipient of the Robert A. Millikan Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Steven R. Dunbar, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Oklahoma State University, founding director of the J. D. Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Mathematics.
Workshop Description:
This workshop will use cooperative learning groups among the participants to introduce them to several multimedia and mathematical techniques that can be used interactively to teach physics/mathematics courses. Participants will perform a variety of interactive digital video, computer data collection and analysis and computer algebra activities from mechanics and waves. They will also prepare multimedia lessons to use with other participants. The workshop is designed to help faculty incorporate powerful multimedia and computer algebra systems into an integrated mathematics/physics course. The participants will be able to export lessons electronically to their home institutions. Preliminary content may be seen at <http://www-class.unl.edu/phys211/>.
Workshop B: Integrated Materials in Mathematics and Physics
Materials developed through the Middle Atlantic Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications throughout the Curriculum (MACMATC), a consortium of the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, Community College of Pennsylvania, and Polytechnic University.
Workshop Leaders:
Larry Gladney, Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Pennsylvania
Robert Styer, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Villanova University
Workshop Description:
The first part of this workshop concerns teaching mathematics and physics with an interdisciplinary approach. It has three main goals. 1) An overview of CD-Rom materials which integrate mathematics and physics through a participant CD-Rom "treasure hunt." 2) An exercise in merging a physics and a math syllabus in which participants will work on given syllabi and will rearrange the topics to interweave mathematics and physics most effectively. 3) An overview of the team-teaching literature and some personal anecdotes.
The second part of the workshop will be an introduction to the pedagogical technique of "voting" on conceptual questions. The participants will use electronic voting remote controls (PRS: Personal Response System) to answer conceptual questions in mathematics and physics. In the classroom these questions would be preceded by an assigned reading. When most students' responses are incorrect, they must discuss the question with their neighbors and then vote again. After a one-and-one-half hour simulation of the classroom experience, teams will develop their own concept questions and answers. They will have time on their own to decide on assigned readings, the concept questions, and appropriate multiple choice answers before this workshop resumes later in the week.
The third component of this workshop will be participant study of the "free body force diagram applet." This is followed by demos by the workshop leaders of other materials related to mathematics and physics created by other MACMATC developers. The workshop concludes with participants sharing their reflections on some of the team-teaching advice given in the first session to see how these principles have been evidenced during the week of team activities.
Workshop C: Integrated Physics and Mathematics at Dartmouth College
Materials developed through the Dartmouth College Mathematics Across the Curriculum project.
Workshop Leaders:
Marcia Groszek, Department of Mathematics, Dartmouth College
Delo Mook, Department of Physics, Dartmouth College
Participants will work in teams on materials in the Integrated Calculus and Physics sequence at Dartmouth.
Workshop D: Preparing Future Teachers in Physics and Mathematics
Part I:
Workshop Leaders:
Jeff Adams and Greg Francis, Department of Physics, Montana State University. Faculty members of the Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research (CAPER) Team.
This presentation will describe our program of inquiry-based physics instruction for pre-service teachers. We will describe both a laboratory-only course for elementary education majors and more traditional lecture + laboratory courses for broad-field science majors. These courses emphasize students' active participation in the model-building process leading to lasting conceptual change. The instruction will be modeled by having participants work collaboratively on one of the tutorial exercises used in our classes.
Part II: Mathematical Modeling with Matrix Theory
Workshop Leader:
Ken Bowers, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Montana State University.
Across the country, the ``reform'' movement is in full swing. Interdisciplinary education involving an integrated curriculum is being emphasized. For several reasons, efforts in calculus reform initially received by far the most attention. However, many other areas of the mathematics/science curriculum, among them linear algebra, are ideally suited for this movement. As with calculus, the focus on improving linear algebra is on cooperative or group learning, technological advances, open--ended problems and modeling. This brings up an old controversy; Should we teach linear algebra or matrix theory? (if there is a difference). A more relevant question is; How do we incorporate practical modeling in such a course?
This presentation will discuss some of the recent directions taken in the course entitled Introduction to Matrix Theory (MATH 221) at Montana State University. Here, perhaps more so than in calculus, there are significant changes in the course content when comparing the new and the old courses. The topics from above, including group learning, technology, and modeling, will be outlined in the context of this particular course. Specific details will be provided on how the varied clientele of this course (computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, and education majors) can mutually benefit.
For a tentative schedule, click here.