SGA and Be Curious Grants
As described in the "Collaborative Work with Students" section, I took three former students to the Joint Math Meetings in January, 2019, for them to give a talk about the work they did as part of the 2019 SCUDEM differential equations modeling challenge. For this endeavor, the students were awarded an SGA Grant for $300 and I was awarded a Be Curious Mini Grant for $372. Both the SGA grant and the Be Curious Mini Grant were through Florida Southern College.
Link to the confirmations of the SGA grant. Link to the confirmations of the Be Curious grant.
Future Grant Proposals
Authoring Calculus 2 POGIL Activities
Authoring POGIL activities is a time-consuming process. I attended several workshops to learn about authoring POGIL activities as well as the process of getting activities peer reviewed for publication as part of the POGIL organization. I have met with other faculty to discuss possible topics that would be included in a set of calculus 2 POGIL activities, as none yet exist. One reason the process is time-consuming is that the activities are ideally created over the summer, then tested in the classroom the following semester. Obviously this requires teaching calculus 2, which may not happen as often depending on the school. I want to apply for a grant to collaborate with other faculty in a project to author a set of activities to be tested in the classroom.
Specifications Grading and Student Anxiety
I have noticed over the years of using specifications grading in my courses that many of my students describe feeling less anxious or stressed about assessments. I want to investigate this possible (and desired) effect by having my students fill out a validated survey that measures both math anxiety and test anxiety at the beginning and at the end of the course. I have already received Florida Southern College IRB approval for this quasi-experimental study. I have administered these surveys both at the beginning and at the end of each course I taught in fall 2022. After analyzing the data, I would like to apply for a grant to have a student work with me in organizing a more controlled experimental design (with a better control group and larger sample size), collecting and analyzing the data, and ultimately writing an article summarizing the results.