Mathematics Education Research in Texas (& undergraduate research)
Recently (Friday, Oct 17, 2014) I had the privilege of being on a panel on undergraduate research, at the MERiT conference in Huntsville, Texas. Other panelists were Tami Cook, director of the EURECA center at Sam Houston and Kathy Horak Smith, math ed faculty member at Tarleton State University. The discussion was moderated by Dusty Jones, mathematics educator at Sam. Each of us, including the moderator, described our experiences with undergraduate research.
Dr. Tami Cook describe her enjoyment of directing undergraduate research in biology and described the development of the undergraduate research center (EURECA) here at Sam Houston. That center has been open for only a year and Dr. Cook only gets a single course release but she has done a remarkable job in just 12 months, obtaining significant funding for student projects and student travel. The most significant funding has been for the FAST program (Faculty & student teams) which provides up to $10,000 per summer team (a faculty member and three students) to engage in research or creative endeavors.
I described my experience with undergraduate research, mentioning Ronnie Brown's Carpentry Fable and my summer at the National Security Agency's Director's Summer Program (NSA DSP). In an attempt to briefly engage my audience (without blackboard or other materials), we iterated some numbers through the 3n+1 problem. I described the Collatz conjecture (hailstone problem) as an example of something easy for undergraduates to understand but (very) hard to solve. (I will attempt to look at some accessible variations of the Collatz problem in a later post.)
Kathy Horak Smith described her summer work with math seniors in secondary education. She travels from Tarleton State to Texas Christian University each summer to work with grade school children in an ELL (English Language Learners) math program and takes college students with her. These college students are engaged in research into mathematical learning, as it is done by young children whose first language is not English. It was clear from Kathy's exposition that this is an exciting opportunity for her college students and they engage in this professional work with enthusiasm!
Dusty Jones briefly described his summer work with an NSF funded team of five students in the SAM REU. The students, most of them in an education track, analyzed a variety of grade school statistics textbooks and used the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) to evaluate the materials in the textbooks.
Advice from panelists
At the end, we were asked a number of questions about our work. In response to one question, Tami Cook emphasized the importance of laying out the work expectations for undergrad students at the beginning of a program. Students needs to be clearly told when work begins, that it will be full-time. The ground rules for work should be laid out early. Yes, there is much flexibility within any research program (NO, we don't have to start at 8!) but many undergraduates do not really understand either full-time work nor what it means to work 40 hours a week on a science project. Don't soft-pedal the work involved; the really good students are eager to work hard and dive into the research!
In response to another question, Kathy emphasized the importance of high, professional expectations for our students. If we describe professional expectations, many of our students are eager to step up to those expectations! They will make mistakes, of course, but the value of the undergraduate research program is to introduce students to their profession. They are eager to become professionals and are ready to quit being students! Respect that desire! (Yes, in my experience directing math research, I can ask my students to learn LaTeX, install GAP or Sage, and although some faculty think that we should not expect this of undergrads, by the time I turn around, the students are done and eager to move on to the next task.)
The presentations were well received by conference participants, with a number of questions after the formal end of the panel and during the lunch that followed. It was an enjoyable experience to discuss undergraduate research in this setting.
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