{"id":726,"date":"2011-08-08T16:31:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T21:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/?p=726"},"modified":"2011-08-08T19:05:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T00:05:35","slug":"good-times-at-mathfest-2011-in-lexington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/2011\/08\/08\/good-times-at-mathfest-2011-in-lexington\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Times at MathFest 2011 in Lexington"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Guest post by Professor Deb Bergstrand<\/a>, Swarthmore College<\/a><\/p>\n

Ed Burger<\/a>\u2019s invited MathFest<\/a> address on recent work in number theory was masterful.\u00a0 He wowed the crowd at the end when he revealed that the new results he presented were discovered by his SMALL<\/a> undergraduate research students during the summer of 2010, thus reinforcing his message that the mathematics of tomorrow will be produced by the students of today. Ed\u2019s other direct role at the conference was the invited paper session he organized on \u201cOffering students lessons beyond mathematics, through mathematics.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-day session included speakers from universities, colleges (including yours truly), community colleges, and even industry. Harry Lucas, Jr.<\/a>, founder of the Educational Advancement Foundation<\/a>, spoke on how lessons he learned from math classes with R. L. Moore<\/a> carried over into his business career<\/a>. Mr. Lucas has been a generous supporter of mathematics education throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Denison’s<\/a> Lew Ludwig<\/a> emphasized how the content of math classes is much less relevant to most students than the process. He pointed out that we exercise by lifting weights and running around a track not to perfect those particular skills, but to build a healthier body. Likewise, he said, doing mathematics builds healthy thinking skills.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Tina Carter<\/a> described Buffalo State College\u2019s<\/a> experience in revising their \u201cliberal arts math\u201d to use Burger & Starbird\u2019s<\/a> \u201cHeart of Mathematics.<\/a>\u201d She and her colleagues had gathered extensive data from faculty and students, showing significant increase in student interest in the course as well as their depth of understanding. Then Colm Mulcahy<\/a> of Spelman College<\/a> presented a lively collection of \u201ctasty\u201d examples that use food to inspire mathematical thinking. Candice Dance<\/a> of Onondaga Community College<\/a> ended the session by describing and displaying many of the projects her students do.\u00a0 She included a video of ways in which her students\u2019 work has intrigued and inspired the entire campus community.<\/p>\n

The Thursday session opened with the venerable Mike Starbird<\/a>. Speaking on \u201cTeaching Lessons that Last a Lifetime,\u201d Mike urged us to \u201cstrive for deep understanding\u201d in our students, charging that \u201cwe aim too low; we should want our classes to be transformative experiences.\u201d Mike and Ed continue to be an inspiration to all me, along with my great former colleagues at Williams<\/a> and current colleagues at Swarthmore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Professor Deb Bergstrand, Swarthmore College Ed Burger\u2019s invited MathFest address on recent work in number theory was masterful.\u00a0 He wowed the crowd at the end when he revealed that the new results he presented were discovered by his SMALL undergraduate research students during the summer of 2010, thus reinforcing his message that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14042,14043],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-math"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}