by Angie Hodge
This year Mathematics Awareness Month
made me realize how in love I am with math. I became a teacher because I loved
to teach, but recently I discovered I am equally in love with math.
How do we as mathematicians and
mathematics educators help others to discover this passion (and in a timely
manner, so that students take more mathematics courses)?
I will be the first to admit that
Mathematics Awareness Month has never had a lot of meaning to me until this year. So
what was so different about this time around? Well, this year I said yes to something
(and often more than one something) math-related each week in April.
The funny thing is I didn't even realize I had done this until about halfway
through the month.
Each event could be a blog post in and of
itself, but here are the highlights. Feel free to provide feedback on
which events you would like to hear more about in future blogs. We love
suggestions!
Dr. Betty Love leading a "Meet the Professor" series talk on operations research. |
The UNO mathematics department also hosted two speakers, Dr. Bob Klein and Dr. Randy Cone. They each gave a "Cool Math Talk" for students and a "Math Teachers' Circle"
session for local math teachers. All of these sessions both actively engaged and challenged the audiences.
I also spent four days at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics national conference. The week was filled with ideas to bring
into the classroom for both university students and K-12 students. I held
a gallery workshop on "Hands-on, Minds-on Calculus." In this workshop, teachers had a chance to
try both unguided and guided activities that I do with my own calculus
students. This included a game where they worked in groups to match differential equations to
slope fields.
Mathematics Awareness Month for me was
capped off with a five-day visit to the University of Colorado at Boulder to discuss
ways to engage students in the learning of calculus.
Wow, that was a lot of
extra-curricular math for one month. Instead of being exhausted from it, though, I was
surprisingly re-energized!
This made me think back to my
calculus students. For each of our guest speakers at UNO, I had several
students who went to both talks (even the one for practicing teachers). For Dr.
Klein’s talk, many of the students had spent an hour in the math help room
before class, over an hour in class, an hour in Dr. Klein's
"Cool Math Talk," and two hours at the Math Teachers' Circle.
Then it hit me. They love math. They may not know it yet, but who spends that
much time doing anything unless they enjoy it? It also hit me that, you know
what? I, too, love math!
There are a few questions that
come to mind when I think about this. What was it that held my students
attention through so many hours of math events? What was it that
made me want to set up and attend these math events? What can we do to help
others "fall in love" with math? Here's one thought I had (and I look forward to hearing yours).
What did all of these events have
in common? They all involved the audience. Dr. Love used mathematical humor and
real life applications to keep the audience members engaged. Dr. Klein was on
his toes modifying his sessions to fit his audience. Dr. Cone got the audience
engaged in an IBL style competition to lead into each new portion of his talk.
So, what do you do to help others
discover a passion for math?
Share your favorite story or
technique with us!
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