Facilitators: Adam Giambrone (Elmira College) and Keith Jones (SUNY Oneonta)
We are pleased to invite you to the Summer 2021 Greater Upstate New York Inquiry Based Learning (UNYIBL) Workshop, which will focus on active learning with an eye towards equity. This workshop is free and will be held virtually. Participants with all levels of IBL experience are welcome and have something to contribute, from those completely new to IBL to those with many years of experience. We especially welcome faculty from two-year colleges and VITAL (Visitors, Instructors, TAs, Adjuncts, and Lecturers) faculty.
Limited funding is available to partially support expenses such as childcare. Preference will be given to VITAL faculty and faculty at two-year colleges.
Days and Times: Tuesday, July 13 through Thursday, July 15 from 10:00am to 3:00pm EDT
Breaks: There will be a 1-hour lunch break from around 12:00pm to around 1:00pm between morning and afternoon sessions, as well as additional shorter breaks throughout the day.
The workshop will consist of sessions and “hands-on” activities framed around each of the Four Pillars of IBL, as well as the connections between these pillars, exploring both specific teaching practices and broad aspects of course design. We will discuss active learning in ways that can be applied to online, hybrid, and in-person modalities.
Call for Abstracts: All conference attendees are invited to give a 10-minute talk on any aspect of teaching using IBL and other active learning methods (course design, teaching practices, activities, etc.). Contributed talks need not be formal; the aim is to share ideas, foster conversations, and create networking opportunities. If you would like to give such a presentation, please indicate your interest when you register.
Registration Link: https://forms.gle/ccb7bEX34zFKCE6c7
Registration Deadline: Monday, June 28
Facilitators: Sarah Hanusch (SUNY Hanusch) and Jane Cushman (Buffalo State)
This virtual workshop is intended for college level mathematics professors or instructors who are interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning. During the workshop you will design an education research project, and learn how to implement it. We expect you to begin with an idea for a project, and end with a plan you can implement. We don't expect your ideas to be fully developed yet, but we want you to have an idea.
Our goal is to train individuals who are interested in mathematics education research, but lack the training to get started. If you have previous training in education research, this workshop is NOT for you. We especially want to encourage applicants from two-year colleges and those who are not in tenure track positions to apply.
This workshop is funded by NSF via mini-grants from the COMMIT network and by Mathematics Learning by Inquiry via the UNYIBL Consortium. Spots in the workshop are limited due to funding limitations and participant-to-facilitator ratios. Please only apply if you can commit to the full two-hour time slot of all four sessions. Upon completion of all sessions of the workshop each participant will be compensated with $100.
To apply go to this Google Form. In this application, you will be asked to describe why you are interested in this type of research, and a project idea you are interested in developing. Applications will be reviewed starting May 15.
Dates: Tuesday evenings, June 1, 8, 15, 22 from 7-9pm. Zoom information will be provided after applicants are accepted to the workshop.
Contact workshop leaders Sarah Hanusch (email) or Jane Cushman (email) for questions or additional information.
Speaker: Victor Piercey (Ferris State University)
Title: Workshop on Integrating Social Justice into Mathematics Classes
Registration: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkfuqgrTgoHNT4x_43AnEAjp-KD2AOd1KE
Abstract: In the last several years, mathematicians have been thinking about how their work impacts the world around them. In the classroom, social justice connections raise student awareness of the role mathematics plays in complicated social issues and empowers them to identify and help solve social problems. There have been several publications about teaching mathematics for social justice (such as the PRIMUS special issue on Mathematics for Social Justice, a themed collection in the journal Numeracy - part 1 and part 2, and the AMS book Mathematics for Social Justice: Resources for the College Classroom edited by Karaali and Khadjavi with a second volume due Summer 2021), books about the social harms caused by algorithms (such as Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction), and working groups dedicated to ethics in mathematics (such as the Cambridge Ethics in Mathematics Society as well as the Ethical Mathematics Project Catherine Buell and I are getting off the ground).
In this workshop, we will work on integrating social justice activities into mathematics classes. The goal will be to connect problems from standard undergraduate mathematics courses with social justice issues. We will also dedicate some time to handling controversial and complex social issues in a mathematics classroom. During the workshop, participants will outline an activity that they can use in their classes and share with others for feedback.
Speaker: Elizabeth Matson (Alfred University)
Registration: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpfuGurDIqGdxKV7sB5xZXZ4HFFrbXQvwe
Come learn to create a hyperbolic plane with no prior knowledge necessary of fiber arts or hyperbolic geometry! You only need yarn (not stretchy and around 300 yds) and a crochet hook (5 mm/size H works best if you are new to the craft) to create your very own hyperbolic plane! We will further discuss various properties of the hyperbolic plane, how they can be visualized in your crocheted model, and how you can share those idea with your students, colleagues, and/or friends!
Speaker: Keith Jones (SUNY Oneonta)
Title: Using Project Workshops and Narratives as an alternate pedagogical approach
Abstract: In fall 2020, I began using "project workshops" that included a significant "personal narrative" component, facilitated through online discussion boards, as an alternative pedagogical approach. For each topic, each student must "claim" their own problem, and write an attempted solution with a personal narrative on their experience solving the problem. Discussion occurs over one to two weeks, with certain minimum expectations for student discussion. The workshops are aimed at a mastery/specifications-grading style approach, with a component of the grade based on revising the problem to completion. Another component of the grade is more traditionally based on earning credit for the quality of their narrative and evidence of learning the topic in discussion (both based on a rubric). I have made logistical modifications to the problem workshop in the current Spring 2021 semester and continue to seek refinements to strengthen it pedagogically and logistically. In this talk, I'll discuss my motivations for undertaking this approach, the pros and cons I have noticed, my overall experience, and impression of student reactions. I will save significant time at the end for fellow attendees to discuss their thoughts and experiences related to this approach and for the group to discuss potential modifications and alternatives.
UNY IBL would like to kick off our spring events with a social hour scheduled on Friday Jan. 22 at 7pm. No registration is needed. Please join us to catch up with your old friends or meet new friends. We would really like to hear what you are doing and/or planning for you classes for the incoming semester. We will use a platform called gather.town. If you have not used it before, I promise it will be super fun! Use the following link to connect to the social hour.
https://gather.town/app/WHfg8gy2vcgRIGHh/unyiblsocialhour
The best supported browsers are Firefox and Google Chrome. Tablets (such as iPad) are also supported but still in beta phase. Special thanks to Adam Giambrone who created the virtual space for us!
Join your colleagues and hang out for a while. We can talk about whatever you’d like, including how we’re going to adapt to whatever is being thrown at us for the fall term.
Wednesday, July 15, 4:00pm - ?? (EDT)
The MAA Seaway Section is hosting a series of online events in summer 2020. On Tuesday, July 28, Shay Fuchs of the University of Toronto Mississauga will conduct an online workshop titled “Scaling Up Inquiry-Based Learning for In-Person and Virtual Large-Sized Classes”
Free registration, but please register in advance to get URL
Register at this site.
Tuesday, July 28, 1:00 - 2:30pm EDT via Zoom. All are welcome.
The first in our Fall 2020 online events series will be while we are still planning for fall. It will be a Panel on IBL Practices in Online Classes.
Thursday, August 6, 1pm-2pm EDT, via Zoom
Register here for free to get the link.
Join your colleagues and hang out for a while. We can talk about whatever you’d like, including how we’re going to adapt to whatever is being thrown at us for the fall term.
Wednesday, July 15, 4:00pm - ?? (EDT)
UNY IBL is working on an interesting project with middle and high school teachers in the Buffalo and Rochester areas. Through the development of inquiry-based course modules by teacher-leaders and the dissemination of these modules via Math Teachers' Circle series, we are spreading inquiry into the pre-college classroom. Thanks to support from the National Center for Civic Innovation and 100Kin10, along with help from MLI, AIM, AMTRA, and a whole host of others, we are able to bring the Math Circles of Inquiry project!