Conference Session

The Transition from Secondary to College Mathematics

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bert Pariser, Technical Career Institutes

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

AC 2012-4138: TEACHING PYTHAGORAS’S THEOREM USING SOFT-WAREDr. Bert Pariser, Technical Career Institutes Bert Pariser is a faculty member in the Electronic Engineering Technology and Computer Science Tech- nology departments at Technical Career Institutes. His primary responsibility is developing curriculum and teaching methodology for physics, thermodynamics, electromagnetic field theory, computers, and databases. Pariser has prepared grant proposals to the National Science Foundation, which produced the funding for a Fiber Optics Laboratory. He served as Faculty Advisor to the IEEE and Tau Alpha Pi National Honor Society. Pariser was instrumental in merging Tau Alpha Pi National Honor Society into the ASEE. In

Conference Session

Using Applications and Projects in Teaching Mathematics

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David I. Spang, Burlington County College; Kathleen Spang, Middlesex Boro High School

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

AC 2012-5124: REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS OF MATHEMATICALAND SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES IN THE CURRICULUM FOR COLLEGEAND CAREER SUCCESSDr. David I. Spang, Burlington County College David Spang is the Vice President of Academic Programs at Burlington County College in Pemberton, N.J. Prior to being named Vice President, Spang served as Dean of the Science, Mathematics, and Tech- nology Division. Spang holds a Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering and a M.B.A. degree, with a concentration in innovation and technology management. Prior to joining academia, Spang spent nearly 20 years in R&D and business development.Dr. Kathleen Spang, Middlesex Boro High School Kathleen Spang has been a high school educator for

Conference Session

Using Applications and Projects in Teaching Mathematics

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julie Gainsburg, California State University, Northridge

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

company and how thattransition occurs. The students provided a second form of data: After each interview, theyparticipated in an individual “think-aloud” problem-solving session, in which they worked on anassigned problem set from the target course and verbalized their thinking and problem-solvingstrategies.As the participants in this study represented different stages in an engineering career, it wasinappropriate to combine the data for general coding. Instead, I approached all data with thequestion, How does this participant perceive the role of mathematics in engineering? For eachparticipant, I extracted data relevant to this question from the interview and “think-aloud”transcripts. From these extracted data, I created a narrative summary for

Conference Session

Techniques in Improving Mathematics Education in STEM Curricula

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Shaw, University of Southern California; Zachary Boehm, University of Southern California; Hussain Badruddin Penwala, University of Southern California; Jihie Kim, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

into a Game Making Curriculum Erin Shaw, Zachary Boehm, Hussain Penwala, and Jihie Kim, Ph.D Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California shaw@isi.edu, zboehm@usc.edu, penwala@usc.edu, jihie@isi.eduAbstractThis paper reports on our experiences designing GameMath!, a mathematics learning track for anew game making curriculum called Pedagogical Games. The curriculum is the result of anNational Science Foundation grant to explore novel ways to teach standards-based content and21st century skill to underperforming high school students in Los Angeles. The project’s goalsare to address retention, career education and secondary mathematics learning. Game-making isbeing used to

Conference Session

Techniques in Improving Mathematics Education in STEM Curricula

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jennifer Vandenbussche, Southern Polytechnic State University; Christina R. Scherrer, Southern Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

exposureto the material to solve the problems. Since College Algebra students are at the beginning oftheir mathematical careers, it is not surprising that they lack the mathematical sophisticationneeded to teach themselves the material using only the textbook.The workshop students appeared to avoid the dip in mathematical confidence experienced bythe students in the traditional section. Whereas students in the traditional section agreedsignificantly more with the statements “It scares me to have to take mathematics” and“Mathematics is harder for me than for most persons” at the end of the semester than beginningof the semester, the workshop students had no statistically significant change in their agreementwith these statements. This lends mild

Conference Session

Techniques in Improving Mathematics Education in STEM Curricula

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John R. Reisel, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Marissa Jablonski, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Ethan V. Munson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Hossein Hosseini, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

skills and teachstudents during their first year in college how to practice independent problem solving methods.This procedure requires deep thought, time, discussion and risk taking; these are all skillsbeneficial for careers in engineering and computer science. For this reason, peer mentors do nothave solution manuals. The peer mentors act as facilitators who work with students to solve Page 25.188.3problems methodically while encouraging critical thinking, as opposed to supplying answers toquestions. Learning problem solving skills in a group will inevitably raise the confidence levelsof the students early in their college career. These

Conference Session

Techniques in Improving Mathematics Education in STEM Curricula

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yonghui Wang, Prairie View A&M University; Jian-ao Lian, Prairie View A&M University; Yonggao Yang, Prairie View A&M University

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

US middle school students towards math. The survey found that “72% of US middleschool students spend more than three hours each day outside of school in front of a TV, mobilephone or computer screen rather than doing homework or other academic-related activities. Bycontrast, just 10% of students spend the same amount of time on their homework each day with67% spending less than one hour on their math homework.” It continued revealing that “whilemost middle school students believe that math is important to their futures, they fail tounderstand the connection between the subject and potential careers.” [3] To address this issue, a group of faculty members with multidisciplinary background haveinvestigated the teaching of the traditional math

Conference Session

The Transition from Secondary to College Mathematics

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sabina Jeschke, RWTH Aachen University; Olivier Frédéric Pfeiffer, Technische Universität Berlin; Omar Musa Hasan, American University of Mdaba; Erhard Zorn, Technische Universität Berlin

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

by students).In the course we are using a computer algebra system (Maple) instead of standard numericalsoftware (e.g. MATLAB16) even if the students will learn to solve engineering problems withnumerical software packages in their future academic/professional career. However, at this earlystage of their academic education we are emphasizing the mathematical comprehension whichcan be supported in an ideal way by a computer algebra system instead of numerical software.We decided to use the commercial computer algebra system Maple instead of open sourcesoftware like Maxima17. Maple has a very convenient graphical interface (see figure 5) andoffers the possibility to create interactive worksheets. This gives the possibility to concentrate

Conference Session

Using Applications and Projects in Teaching Mathematics

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gunter Bischof, Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria; Christian Steinmann, Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

AC 2012-4538: FLUID DYNAMICS SIMULATION USING CELLULARAUTOMATADr. Gunter Bischof, Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria Throughout his career, Gnter Bischof has combined his interest in science, engineering and education. He studied physics at the University of Vienna, Austria, and acquired industry experience as development engineer at Siemens Corporation. Currently, he teaches Engineering Mathematics and Fluid Mechan- ics at Joanneum University of Applied Sciences. His research interests focus on vehicle aerodynamics, materials physics, and engineering education.Mr. Christian Steinmann, Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria Christian Steinmann has an engineer degree in mathematics