Workshop on Undergraduate Teaching with Mathematics and Statistics Action Technologies

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop aims to contribute to the national need for high quality mathematics teaching by improving the preparation of future mathematics teachers. The workshop focuses on helping mathematics education faculty develop expertise with mathematics action technologies. These technologies include tools and devices that compute and display the results of mathematical equations, such as graphing calculators and computer simulations. This interactive workshop will provide mathematics education faculty with opportunities to learn how to use mathematics action technology as learners. In addition, the faculty participants will consider the ways they might implement these technologies in their courses for prospective secondary mathematics teachers. Approximately 50 faculty from across the U.S. will participate in the workshop, gaining practice with mathematics action tools that span the needs of different mathematics and statistics courses. The main goal of this project is to improve faculty expertise in teaching undergraduate courses for future secondary mathematics teachers. To this end, it will plan and implement a 2.5-day workshop for instructors of undergraduate mathematics content and pedagogical methods courses that are intended to prepare future teachers to teach mathematics with technology. The project will provide beginning through advanced level sessions in which faculty will learn how to use mathematics action technologies as learners and consider the ways they might implement them in their courses. Specifically the project will: 1) Provide workshop sessions on a variety of mathematics action tools that span the needs of those working in geometric, algebraic/function, and statistics contexts; 2) Provide workshop sessions that range (and build) from basic functionality to more advanced functionality for each mathematics action tool; 3) Provide workshop sessions that allow participants to work at their own pace on specific functions of a mathematics action tool of their choice with the support of experts; 4) Provide workshop leaders for each technology tool who use the tool in content courses and methods courses; and 5) Evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop through perceived impact on faculty expertise and self-reports of mathematics action tool use in instruction. Workshop participants are expected to leave with the expertise needed to begin to incorporate mathematics action technologies into their courses. What is learned about the development of participants' self-efficacy in use of mathematics action technology will inform future workshop design and has the potential to also inform future educational research studies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.