dear nysmatyc conference participants, · borough of manhattan community college the speaker will...

November 1, 2009 Dear NYSMATYC Conference Participants,

As the program organizers for the New York State Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges Region IV Conference, we would like to extend a warm welcome from the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY! Our conference theme, Mathematics: Learning and Teaching in a Community College, has resulted in a broad range of interesting presentations we think you will really enjoy, including talks on mathematics and on education, and even poster boards from some of our students.

We sincerely appreciate all of you who are presenting and presiding at today’s

conference. We are also grateful to Senior Vice President Sadie Bragg, past president of both NYSMATYC and AMATYC, for all her hard work and continuing support on our behalf. We would also like to thank our department chair, Dr. Annie Han, for her leadership and encouragement. To the publishing company Pearson, our special thanks for providing us with lunch, and to the publishing companies, Cengage, Wiley, and McGraw-Hill, thank you for your generous support. Without all of your contributions, this conference would not have been possible.

We hope you will return to your institutions with new ideas to try in your

classrooms and in your research. Have a great conference! Warmest regards,

AllaMorgulis AllaMorgulis AllaMorgulis AllaMorgulis Margaret DeanMargaret DeanMargaret DeanMargaret Dean Kathleen OffenholleyKathleen OffenholleyKathleen OffenholleyKathleen Offenholley

Carol BilskyCarol BilskyCarol BilskyCarol Bilsky----BienikBienikBienikBienik June GastónJune GastónJune GastónJune Gastón

MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT 199 CHAMBERS STREET, ROOM N520, NEW YORK, NY 10007 HTTP://WWW.BMCC.CUNY.EDU/MATH/INDEX.HTML TEL: 212-220-1335 FAX: 212-748-7459

Conference Schedule

8:20-9:00

Richard Harris Terrace

Check in and Late Registration, Breakfast

9:00-9:20


Welcome and Opening Remarks BMCC Math Dept. Chair

Dr. Annie Han BMCC Senior Vice President

Dr. Sadie Bragg

9:30-4:30

Snacks and publishers’ textbook displays will be provided throughout the conference in room S632A. Student poster presentations will be on view

in Richard Harris Terrace all day.

9:30-10:20

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

PEER ASSISTED LEARNING

WORKSHOPS : THROUGH THE

LENS OF STUDENT LEADERS

Janet Liou-Mark

New York City College of Technology

So you want to be a peer leader, but why? New York City College of Technology has been offering Peer Assisted Learning Workshops in Mathematics and Science for the past three years. Enlightening experiences from student peer leaders will be presented.

With AE Dreyfuss, David Chauca, Jorge Paucar, Lorenzo Lares, Jamal Stovall, William Lau, Sharmir Findley, Travion Joseph, Kurt Sealy, RenaldDambreville and MakensonDupas

DISCOVER SOME HIDDEN

FEATURES OF THE TI CALCULATOR

James Salvadon


This workshop aims to explore some hidden features of the Texas Instrument 84+/83+. Topics from Algebra, Precalculus, Calculus, and Statistics will be used to explore these features.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF GROUP

THEORY, FOLLOWED BY: THE EXISTENCE OF

UNCOUNTABLY MANY 3-SOLVABLE GROUPS

Marianna Bonanome Albert Ng

New York City College of Technology Borough of Manhattan Community College

The first part of this talk will consist of a review of some concepts in group theory. Topics will include normal subgroups, quotient groups, and an introduction to solvable and metabelian groups.

The second part of the talk will highlight three interesting theorems regarding solvable groups. One theorem, due to JaquesLewin, is useful in showing that there are continuously many isomorphism classes of two-generator solvable groups. An important consequence of these theorems is that there are continuously many finitely generated 3-solvable groups.

10:30-11:20

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

LEARNING MATHEMATICS

THROUGH RESEARCH

SofyaNayer

Borough of Manhattan Community College

The speaker will address mentoring student research projects from a variety of disciplines: pure mathematics, physics, engineering, art and nature and the effect of this way of learning mathematics for the students doing the projects and for the students for whom the project is being presented.

A LOOK AT CALCULUS AND ITS

SUBTLETIES THROUGH THE EYES OF MAPLE

Arnavaz P. Taraporevala, Nadia Benakli, Satyanand

Singh


The presenters will take you on a journey through Calculus using Maple. A smorgasbord of applications will be discussed to illuminate the ease of learning Calculus. The interactive nature of Maple will be explored and it will be shown how this can lead to a better understanding of Calculus.

ROTATION DISTANCE AND THE

THOMPSON-STEIN GROUPS: STUDENT AND FACULTY

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Claire Wladis Michael Cuhna


We explain what rotation distance is and define the Thompson and Thompson-Stein groups. Then we describe how to calculate distances in these groups, and how this is related to calculating the rotation distance between two binary trees. This talk presents both faculty and student research.

11:30-11:55

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

NAVIGATION B MENTORING AND

LEADERSHIP: A PROGRAM

SUPPORTING UNDERGRADUATE

WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS

Janet Liou-Mark


The mission of the Navigation by Mentoring and Leadership (NLM) program is to attract and retain students, particularly women, in the field of mathematics. The program sponsors mentoring programs, luncheons with female mathematics faculty members, field trips, conference participation and presentations, and graduate school preparation workshops. This presentation is supported by the MAA/Tensor Foundation Women and Mathematics Grant.

With Mursheda Ahmed, ImanFarraj, Yvency Marcellus, Alma Cabral Reynoso, Jodi Ann

Young

CALCULUS? YES YOU CAN!

EmadAlfar, Chia-ling Lin, Daniel Ness

Nassau Community College & Dowling College

Community college students at all levels of mathematics can learn one of the fundamental concepts of Calculus. The presenters designed a hands-on activity that provides students with an introduction to the idea of area under a curve (integration).

GROUPS WITH CONSTANT UPPER

CENTRAL SERIES

Marcos Zyman


For any group G, we denote by AutG the automorphism group of G. The IA-automorphisms consist of those elements of AutG that induce the identity on G abelianized. I plan to discuss some aspects of groups with constant upper central series and their IA-group. In particular, I will offer necessary and sufficient conditions for the IA-automorphisms to equal a direct product of subgroups of AutG. This talk should be accessible to anyone with some background in group theory. (Joint work with M.H. Dean and M. Bonanome).

12:05-12:30

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

FINDING MATH IN THE

NEWSPAPERS: AN EASY WAY TO

CONNECT MATH CONCEPTS TO

THE REAL WORLD

David Sher

Nassau Community College

This presentation describes an assignment that shows students that the concepts they are learning in class are ubiquitous and tests whether they can connect what they are learning to real world events. The discussion will include how to organize such assignments so they are easy to understand and grade.

TWO WAYS TO LOCATE THE NTH

PRIME NUMBER

Ron Skurnick, Mohammad Javadi


In this talk, we will first present the classical method for locating the nth prime number, known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes. We will then introduce an alternative method for locating the nth prime number.

STABILITY OF LINEAR EQUATIONS

– ALGEBRAIC AND GEOMETRIC

ASPECTS

Avraham Goldstein, ChokriCherif, Lucio Prado


The topic of solving small systems of linear equations with several unknown variables is covered in many basic courses. Often the students wonder if the numerical data [the coefficients] and/or the calculations can be approximated. Sometimes small changes in the coefficients can lead to drastic changes in the solutions of the system. We explain how and when such instability can happen. We also make the Geometric picture of the instability clear to the community college audience.

12:30-1:30

Lunch in the Richard Harris Terrace

1:30-2:20 Presentation IV: Richard Harris Terrace

TEACHING WITH MYMATHLAB: EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION Claire Wladis, Kathleen Offenholley, Rita Plotkin


Instructors with experience using MyMathLabshare courses they have successfully implemented and talk about common issues they faced during implementation and how they coped with them.

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

EXPLORING 21ST CENTURY

RESEARCH RESPONSES

TO K-14 MATH ISSUES

June L. Gastón


This virtual journey will include an analysis of perils that must be overcome with resourcefulness in making mandatory algebraic connections. Recent research in teaching and learning that includes effective habits and strategies supporting Mathland survival will be emphasized. Use of current and rising technologies will also be explored.

WHAT CLICKS? WHY CLICK?

Jerry Chen Myung-Chul Kim

Suffolk County Community College

As a new teaching technique in developmental mathematics courses, we use theClicker Voting (CV) approach to enhance student success, increase conceptual understanding, and promote intellectual discovery and critical thinking in an interactive learning environment.

MATH IN 3100 B.C. AND THE

NEUROSCIENCE OF LEARNING

MATH TODAY

Alexander Atwood

Suffolk County Community College

Non-biological extensions of working memory in the human brain, by means of the projection of mathematical symbols and calculations onto two-dimensional written media, were crucial in the genesis of mathematics in ancient Mesopotamia in 3100 B.C. and are fundamentally important in the neuroscience of learning mathematics today.

2:30-3:30 Presentation IV: Richard Harris Terrace

PANEL DISCUSSION: MYMATHLAB Michael George, Peter Olszewski, Ellen Inkelis, Kathleen Offenholley, Carol Bilsky-

Bieniek, Fatima Prioleau, Nancy Passantino


Instructors who have used MyMathLab and WebAssign, some new to the technology and some very experienced, talk about their use of these tools in the classroom: the challenges they faced, the benefits they have seen, and what they have learned by using this new technology.

2:30-2:55

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

COLLEGE STUDENTS’ NAÏVE

CONCEPTS AND MISPERCEPTIONS

OF PROBABILITY. WHAT CAN

WE DO TO ADDRESS THEM IN

INSTRUCTION?

Leonid Khazanov


The presenter will inform the audience about widespread misperceptions of probability, methods of identifying them, and productive approaches to correcting some. Handouts that include the description of typical misconceptions about probability will be provided.

PROMOTING STUDENT LEARNING

AND UNDERSTANDING

THROUGH EPORTFOLIO

Rudy Meangru, HendrickDelcham

LaGuardia Community College

The MEC department with the support of the Center for Teaching and Learning has innovatively infused electronic portfolio in a few of its mathematics and engineering capstone classes. Students are expected to collect, deposit, reflect and connect their educational work. In this presentation, we will discuss and share examples of student ePortfolio.

MATHEMATICAL MYSTERIES: FAMOUS NUMBER THEORY

CONJECTURES – THE GOLDBACH CONJECTURE

TaoufikEnnoure, Mohamed Benzizoune

Monroe College

Prime numbers provide a rich source of speculative mathematical ideas. Today, prime numbers are fascinating but they are also of commercial importance, since the best commercial and military ciphers depend on their properties. Goldbach’s conjecture, however, remains unproved to this day.

IT’S SIMPLE ADDING -- yet it still hasn’t been proven!

3:05-3:30

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

USING THE KCC OPEN DOORS

LEARNING COMMUNITY MODEL

IN MATH EDUCATION

Igor Balsim

Kingsborough Community College

KCC has implemented the Open Doors learning community intervention model to provide students to move more quickly through developmental requirements and earn more credits in their first semester. This approach provided effective strategies to help community college students stay in school and succeed. We plan to expand the open doors model by integrating some business, mathematics andcomputer science courses into the newly designed program.

ANIMATING STATISTICS WITH

ANIMATED POWERPOINT

Jack Lubowsky


PowerPoint has a number of animation features beyond those used to slide words into a presentation. This talk demonstrates how these features can be used to step through problem solutions, show the development of graphs in a problem and illustrate concepts difficult to teach using static figures.

THE TRAVELING SALESPERSON

PROBLEM (TSP): “LET’S PLAN A

ROAD TRIP!”

Ida Klikovac


The purpose is to introduce a method for solving a problem related to the traveling salesperson problem. It is a presentation of a pedagogical tactic which could be applied as a lesson plan, teaching technique, or suggestion to math educators.

The lesson on TSP is designed (1) to motivate and excite students about learning, (2) to introduce a graph theory concept in a unique and successful way.

3:40-4:05

Presentation I

Room S 604

Presentation II

Room S 632

Presentation III

Room S 631

REDUCING FRACTIONS WITHOUT

FACTORING

Holley Carley


I will present a method of reducing fractions without factoring which may be used math courses at the lowest level. This method is particularly helpful for reducing fractions with large numbers in the numerator and denominator. It also provides a nice application of continued fractions.

HERE’S MY TWO CENTS

Mangala Kothari

LaGuardia Community College

Clear pedagogical insight on the computational error in calculating exponential terms like ark and (ar)k. In this presentation we share our classroom experience to show how students can learn and understand their own common algebraic or computational errors through some interesting examples. This work is developed in collaboration with Frank Wang.

PUZZLES AND CODES THAT

ENHANCE NUMBER THEORY FOR

COLLEGE STUDENTS

Eric O’Brien

Bellmore Schools

Beginning with a game, “Break the Code”, guide your students into a journey through some of the mysteries of number theory. Additional puzzles and games stretch the capabilities within the diverse classroom. These additional puzzles are meant to turn students from Mathematical Consumers into Mathematical Creators.

Presentation IV


HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN AMERICA

MaryamVulis

USMA Prep School

This presentation will give an overview of mathematics education in elementary schools and colleges in Colonial America.

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