In January, Mairead Greene and Paula Shorter attended the joint AMS/MAA meetings in Washington DC. They gave a talk entitled, “Engaging Precalculus Students in the Complete Process of Mathematical Modeling.”
Madiha Aslam (working with Mairead Greene) completed a project on Inquiry in the Mathematics classroom funded by a Dean’s Fellowship in Summer 2008 and presented her work at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington.
Four pieces from the exhibition “Looking in and in and in: The art of fractals” by Zdeňka Guadarrama, Jeanette Powers and Chris Shaver won a competition to be displayed at the Joint Mathematics Meetings art exhibit. Visit the exhibition website at: http://www.bridgesmathart.org/art-exhibits/jmm09/index.html
Mairead Greene, Zdeňka Guadarrama and Paula Shorter attended the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics (NCUWM), along with 5 math majors from Rockhurst: Lauren Giesler, Alaina Manning, Jeanette Powers, Meghan Morris, and Jessica Odell. The conference was held at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Jan. 30 – Feb. 1.
In February, Nancy Donaldson delivered a presentation at the American Association of Physics Teachers National Conference in Chicago, IL on an inquiry course developed for non-science majors entitled, “Phascination in Physics—Dr. Donaldson’s Haunted Physics Lab.”
In February, the Rockhurst University Science Division hosted the 2009 Regional Science Olympiad Tournament for twenty-four teams comprising approximately 350 students from regional high schools and middle schools. Nancy Donaldson was the director of the event.
In February, Nancy Donaldson took 14 students from her PH 1750 Introductory Physics course to Mercy Children’s Hospital for “Wacky Science Night.” Rockhurst physics students conducted hands-on science activities with patients ranging in age from 4 – 16. The service night was part of the students’ service learning project for the course.
In March, Nancy Donaldson delivered a peer-reviewed presentation at the National Science Education Conference (Society of College Science Teachers) in New Orleans, LA on service learning projects conducted in her introductory physics classes entitled “Inquiry Physics Learning + Service = Service Learning.”
In March, Zdeňka, together with Annie Lee from Chemistry, Robert Vigliotti from Philosophy, and Laura Salem and Mindy Walker from Biology, won a $45.000 State Farm grant to organize the second RU-Hogan Summer Institute.
In March, 15 high school calculus students from Odessa visited our department. They toured the campus, used Mathematica in the computer labs, attended an introductory talk on coding theory, completed motion detector activities on kinesthetic motion in our physics lab, and had lunch with some of the department.
In March, Keith Brandt and Cindy Schmersal from Campus Ministry lead a group of ten Rockhurst students on a service trip to Punta Gorda, Belize. The group helped to build a small church in a Mayan village new Punta Gorda.
In March, Zdeňka Guadarrama attended the 25th Southeast Analysis Meeting at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. She gave a talk entitled “Approximating z in Hardy and Bergman Norms.”
In March, Mairead Greene organized the first Inquiry in the Mathematics Classroom workgroup for the Kansas City area. There were participants from KU, UMKC and Westfield State College, MA. The group hopes to meet again in Spring 2010.
In March, Mairead Greene and Zdeňka Guadarrama invited two colleagues to give a talk entitled “Math and Salsa” in our Math and Physics seminar.
On March 27, Keith Brandt and our student Jessica Odell gave a mathematics colloquium talk entitled, “A Mathematical Card Trick.” In their talk, Keith and Jessica demonstrated the trick and then revealed the mathematics behind it.
In April, Nancy Donaldson took 15 students from her PH 1750 Introductory Physics course to Hogan Preparatory Academy for “Fun Physics Day” to conduct hands-on wave and sound activities with over 100 freshman Hogan students. Rockhurst students conducted and explained the waves and sound experiments as Hogan students rotated through the exhibits. Following the hands-on portion of the day, Hogan students were given the opportunity to ask Rockhurst students about college life and science programs at Rockhurst. A good time was had by all! (The service day was part of the students’ service learning project for the course).
Keith Brandt and our student Kaleb Waite published their paper, “Using Recursion to Solve the Pill Problem,” in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges. In April, they gave a talk based on their paper at the 15th Annual CCSC Central Plains Conference, held in Bolivar, MO. Their work grew out of a summer research project completed in 2008.
Our student Chris Shaver wrote a paper based on his summer research project with Zdeňka Guadarrama. His paper, "An Exploration of the Cantor Set,” won second place in the Undergraduate Mathematics Paper Contest at Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Chris Shaver will be the student speaker at this year’s commencement ceremony. Next year, he will be teaching mathematics in Denver, Co as a member of the Jesuit Alumni Service Corps.
In April, Keith Brandt, Mairead Greene, Zdeňka Guadarrama, and our student Chris Shaver attended the Spring Meeting of the Missouri MAA, held at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. Mairead gave a talk entitled, “The Beginnings of an Inquiry Workgroup.” Chris gave a talk on his work with the Cantor set. Zdeňka displayed some artwork produced by Chris, our student Jeanette Powers, and herself and took part in the organization of the second meeting of the MO-Section NExT. It was a great success, we have 4 new fellows!
On Sept. 30th and Oct. 1st, the Rockhurst University Physics Department offered a Haunted Physics Lab for 150 metropolitan school age students and for over 200 people from the Rockhurst faculty, students and Kansas City public. Over twenty- five physics exhibits in wave and sound, light and color and current electricity were spookedly displayed and presented by the physics students. A hauntedly good time was had by all!
On Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st, Nancy Donaldson and Mairead Greene attended the Jesuit Physics Retreat in Wyoming, Iowa. This retreat is designed as an opportunity for the physics departments from Rockhurst, Creighton, Loyola- Chicago, Marquette and St. Louis University to meet, share curricula and ideas to promote physics for our students.
Jacob Ambrose (Math and Physics)
Benjamin Christensen (Computer Science)
Peter Huhnerkoch (Math and Accounting)
Melissa Ruhlman (Math)
Michael Seagrass (Math)
Nancy Donaldson, Charles Gosselin and Robert Hegarty of the Math and Physics Department offered two grant funded summer institutes for teachers in June and July of 2008. The institutes served a total of 38 science teachers and 4 pre-service teachers and used an inquiry-based, hands-on constructivist pedagogy to teach physics principles in simple machines, heat, light/color and energy transfer. Each institute was 8 days (64 hours) long and earned the teachers 4 hours of graduate credit.
Zdeňka Guadarrama supervised a summer research project completed by Jeanette Powers and Chris Shaver, entitled "Looking In and In and In: The Art of Fractals." In August, Zdeňka gave a presentation on the project at MathFest 08, a national meeting of the MAA held in Madison, WI.
Keith Brandt supervised a summer research project completed by Kaleb Waite. Kaleb studied a question known as the Pill Problem. Kaleb and Keith described the project in talks given at MathFest 08.
Zdeňka Guadarrama has received a Don & Pat Morrison Teaching Award in Mathematics for Summer, 2008. Her project will involve enhancing and developing reasearch experience for our students.
Zdeňka Guadarrama is a Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) 2007-2008 fellow (Sun Dot). In January of 2008, she organized a session at the national AMS-MAA Joint Meetings in San Diego entitled "Early Carreer Grant Applications". See: http://www.rumathphysics.org/guadarrama/ecga.html. She will be organizing another session for Mathfest, which will take place in Madison, Wisconsin in July of 2008. The session at Mathfest will be called "Teaching Interdisciplinary courses".
Zdeňka Guadarrama, Keith Brandt, and four students travelled to Springfield, MO, on April 18th to attend the Missouri Section meeting of the MAA, at Missouri State University. Zdeňka wass involved in organizing the first meeting of the Missouri Section NExT in Springfield. Keith presented his paper, "How to Build a Pyramid." Students Adam Clark, Jeanette Powers, Melissa Ruhlman, and Kevin Cerveny participated in the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition.
Nancy Donaldson presented a poster at the National Conference on Science Education/ Society of College Science Teacher Divsion in Boston, MA on March 28, 2008. The poster was titled " Phascination in Physics - An Inquiry-Based Physics Course for Non-Science Majors." The poster outlined the inquiry nature of this physics course and displayed student applications of learning in the Haunted Physics Laboratory.
Mairead Greene is involved in a 3-year Math and Science Partnership grant received for math by the Blue Springs School District with Rockhurst as a partner. We are holding the first institute this summer for 6-12 teachers this August.
Mairead Greene received a travel grant from the NCTM to attend the International Congress on Mathematical Education 11 in Monterrey Mexico in July.
In July, Mairead Greene will be attending the Developing Mathematical Ideas Facilitators Institute at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
Nancy Donaldson and Bob Hegarty received a renewal on their Title II Improving Teacher Quality Grant Project, Physics for Elementary School Teachers – Constructing an Understanding of Physics, for 2008-2009. This grant project is designed to improve science teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical skills in teaching physics concepts. All teaching in the physics institute is modeled through the constructivist pedagogy. Twenty-four teachers and six pre-service teachers will attend the 8-day institute to study concepts in Heat, Light/Color, Simple Machines and Energy. The award amount is $132,012.
Zdeňka Guadarrama's paper, “Approximating z in Hardy and Bergman Norms” (coauthored with Dmitry Khavinson) was published in a special volume of Contemporary Mathematics entitled Banach Spaces of Analytic Functions, published by the American Mathematical Society.
Keith Brandt's paper, "Using Backtracking to Study Schur Numbers," was published in the Winter 2008 issue of the journal Mathematics and Computer Education.
Josephine Arzola (Math and Economics)
Nicholas Brubaker (Math)
We welcome two new math professors to our department. Mairead Greene recently completed her Ph.D. at the Univeristy of Massachusetts, and Zdeňka Guadarrama recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas.
John Koelzer's article, "Bootstrapping Our Way to the Product Rule," recently appeared in the Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences.
In October, Keith Brandt gave a talk entitled, "Building a Sine Calculator: A Project for Calculus II Students," at the Kansas City Regional Math Technology Expo, held at Rockhurst.
We are sad to report that our computer science program has been discontinued. Our last CS major will graduate in May. Kevin Burger is now teaching at Arizona State University, and John Cigas is teaching at Park University.
Carl Baker (Math and Physics)
Nick Centonze (Computer Science)
Cathy Dowd (Math)
Erin Herrmann (Math and English)
Jennifer Lamoureux (Math and Physics)
Adam Trotter (Math)
Maureen Weber (Math and Chemistry)
We would also like to congratulate our colleagues Anita Salem, Merrill Goldberg, and John Koelzer, who retired in May. We wish them well in their future adventures!
On March 1, David Hudgins, Rockhurst University adjunct professor, offered a history of Clyde Tombaugh's life at the Sixth Annual Kansas Day Lecture titled "Kansas Astronomer - Back in the News!" The event was at held at Leawood City Hall.
Nancy Donaldson presented a paper entitled ''Results of a Title II Improving Teacher Quality Grant on Constructing an Understanding of Physics'' at the 2007 National Conference on Science Education in St. Louis MO on March 31, 2007. The presentation outlined the goals of our program and discussed the first year results of our three year Title II grant project through an interactive discussion which focused on the constructivist pedagogy modeled during the project workshop.
Keith Brandt, John Koelzer, and four of our students attended the spring meeting of the Missouri Section of the MAA, held at the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO, March 29-30. Keith Brandt presented a talk entitled ''Connecting Related Rates and Differential Equations.'' Our students Josephine Arzola, Nicholas Brubaker, Thomas Scott, and Maureen Weber participated in the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition. See the pictures.
Paula Shorter won a Rockhurst Presidential Grant (for summer, 2007) to investigate the use of computer simulations as a means to improve conceptual understanding of calculus based probability and statistics course work.
The department welcomes its newest member, Br. Robert Macke, S.J.. Bob is a Jesuit Scholastic who has a three-year appointment to teach math and physics. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his master's degree in physics from Washington University in St. Louis. He comes to us from St. Louis University where he recently completed his master's degree in philosophy.
Nancy Donaldson, Bob Hegarty and Charles Gosselin conducted an 8-day summer physics workshop (June 2006) for 24 metropolitan science teachers and six Rockhurst pre-service teachers. The workshop was conducted through funds provided by a three year Title II Improving Teacher Quality Grant (ITQ) received by the physics department in February 2006. The ITQ grant project will be conducted over a 3-year academic year cycle and is designed to improve metropolitan science teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical skills in physics principles in force, motion, heat, electricity, magnetism, light, color and energy.
Nancy Donaldson, Bob Hegarty and Charles Gosselin conducted an 8-day summer physics workshop for the Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri in conjunction with the Diocese’s grant from the Kauffman Foundation to improve the science content knowledge and pedagogical skills of their science teachers. The physics workshop was part of a science and math/math education initiative to be implemented over the next 3 years.
Dave Hudgins, lecturer in Astronomy, published a paper entitled "Effectiveness of Collaborative Ranking Tasks on Student Understanding of Key Astronomy Concepts" (co-authored with E. Prather, D. Grayson, and P. Smits) in Astronomy Education Review.
The paper "Diophantine Equations, Fibonacci Hyperbolas, and Quadratic Forms," written by Keith Brandt and John Koelzer, was recently published in Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences.
Congratulations to May's graduates:
Jesse Bexten (Computer Science and Math)
Lauren Cardwell (Math)
Lynn Fullenkamp (Math)
Ryan Powderly (Accounting and Math)
Brennan Randsdell (Math)
Heather Renier (Math)
Karla Schroff (Math and Theology)
Laura Setchfield (Math and Psychology)
Scott Siegel (Math)
Jonathon Vandergriff-Hughes (Computer Science and Math)
Mathematics and Physics student Laura Setchfield will present work from her senior honors thesis at the Pi Gallery in Kansas City on Friday, May 12 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Laura examines the similarities she has found in her approach to learning mathematics and creating her art work.
Nancy Donaldson and Bob Hegarty received a Title II Improving Teacher Quality grant for a 3-year cycle to improve the physics content and pedagogy of 24 metropolitan science teachers and 6 Rockhurst pre-service teachers. The total grant award was approximately $337,000.
Rena Shull (Rockhrst Education Department) and Nancy Donaldson conducted a math and science workshop entitled: "Using the Mira: A Great Tool for Teaching/Learning Mathematics/Optics" at the Missouri Department of Education Interface B Conference in February 27, 2006.
Nancy Donaldson conducted a 50-minute workshop entitled "Using Concept Mapping to Teach and Assess Physics Conceptually" at the National Science Education Conference in Anaheim, California, April 6 - 9, 2006. The workshop was designed to help teachers (middle school through college) learn to use concept mapping to build a physics "framework" and strengthen students' conceptual physics base. Additionally, the workshop addressed the formative assessment of student-developed concept maps as an indication of student learning.
Ellen Spake (Rockhurst Physical Therapy Department) and Anita Salem have published their paper, "Setting the Stage: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Vol 19, Number 3, Winter 2005, (p5-13).
In March, John Koelzer and Keith Brandt gave presentations at the spring meeting of the Missouri Section of the Mathematical Association of America held in Columbia, MO. John's talk was "Anagram Primes: A Work in Progress." Keith's talk was "Exploring Schur Numbers."
Our students Jospehine Arzola, Nicholas Brubaker, and Maureen Weber participated in the Missouri MAA Collegiate Mathematics Competition, held at the spring meeting of the Missouri MAA in Columbia. See the pictures.
Congratulations to December's graduate:
David Glenn (Mathematics)
Merrill Goldberg, John Koelzer, and Anita Salem are each celebrating the births of new grandchildren. Stop by and see the photos!
Nancy Donaldson, Charles Gosselin, Rena Shull of Rockhurst's Education department and Bob Hegarty conducted a summer physics workshop for teachers from a funded Title II Improving Teacher Quality Grant. In June, 2005, twenty-six teachers from grades 4 to 8 participated in the summer grant workshop and studied concepts in Energy, Waves and Sound and Light and Color. All content was taught through the constructivist pedagogy. Six pre-service teachers from the Rockhurst University education department were accepted for grant participation and attended the summer workshop to work in groups with the teacher participants. Teachers and pre-service teachers returned for two fall workshops and worked together in groups to develop curriculum modules to be implemented in the teachers' classrooms. The pre-service teachers are visiting the teachers’ classrooms this semester in order to assist with module implementation.
In October, 2005, Nancy Donaldson presented a workshop for higher education faculty entitled "Addressing Misconceptions in a Constructivist, Application-Based Physics Course" at the International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning in Cocoa Beach, FL. ISETL is dedicated to the study of instruction and principles of learning in order to implement practical, effective methods of teaching and learning.
On October 12, 2005, the physics department hosted a "Haunted Physics Laboratory." The laboratory was conceived as a final project for students in Physics 2300 "Phascination in Physics." PH 2300 is a core curriculum physics course offered to cover the concepts of waves, sound, light, color and current electricity. The students enrolled in this class were primarily non-science evening students. Each student was responsible for making a Halloween themed project that could be explained with a principle of physics that was covered in the class. Many wonderful projects used the principles of optics, resonance and electricity to delight and amuse invited students and guests. In order to help guests learn about the physics behind the haunted lab, the class provided a lab manual with questions about each project to consider. As the visitors walked through the haunted lab and looked at the projects, they could ask the students questions about how their projects worked. Students were willing to give mini physics lessons to those with a piqued curiosity. The evening was a great success and we invite you all to come next year!
In October, John Cigas and Merrill Goldberg gave presentations at the Kansas City Regional Mathematics Technology Expo, held here at Rockhurst. John's talk was entitled "Teaching Proofs with Online Visual Logic Puzzles—a Reprise," and Merrill's talk was entitled "Interactive Algebra Tutorials Using Excel."
John Koelzer's paper, "Bootstrapping our way to the Product Rule," has been accepted for publication in the Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences.
Congratulations to May's graduates:
Kelly Buehler (Math)
Caroline Donnelly (Computer Science)
Robert Hegarty (Math and Physics)
Jarrod McMains (Math and Physics)
Natalie Simon (Math)
David Hudgins was an invited speaker in a special session on Astronomy Education at the 2005 Summer Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held in Minneapolis May 29 - June 2. The title of his presentation was " Escape the Black Hole of Lecturing: Put Collaborative Ranking Tasks on Your Event Horizon"
David Hudgins gave an oral paper titled "Astronomy Ranking Tasks: Do they Help Students Learn?" at the 35th Annual Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference April 15-16 Kansas City.
Bob Hegarty (PI) and Nancy Donaldson (co-PI) received a Title II Improving Teacher Quality Grant to conduct a summer workshop and academic year follow-up for 23 area science teachers in grades 5 - 8 and 6 Rockhurst pre-service teachers in Light and Color/ Waves and Sound.
In March, Nancy Donaldson and Rena Shull (of Rockhurst's Education Department) gave a presentation at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Interface B Conference in Tan-Tar-A, Missouri entitled "Using Bathroom Scales to Teach Newton's Third Law."
In April, Nancy Donaldson gave a presentation at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Conference in Dallas Texas entitled "The Effectiveness of Constructivist Pedagogy on Students' Learning of Force and Motion Concepts." The talk was based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Also, she submitted a paper to the proceedings of the conference.
In April, John Koelzer and Keith Brandt presented talks at the spring meeting of the Missouri Section of the Mathematical Association of America held in St. Joseph, MO. John and Keith gave a joint talk entitled "A Boy and His Mother Encounter Fibonacci and Diophantus," which is based on their paper "Diophantine Equations, Fibonacci Hyperbolas, and Quadratic Forms." Keith also presented "Finding the Viewing Window," which is based on A Smart Polynomial Graphing Applet, a computer program written by Keith and Kevin Burger.
Kevin Burger published a review of the book "Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable" by Brian Clegg on the Mathematical Association of America's Online Book Review web site. The review is available at http://www.maa.org/reviews/clegginfinity.html.
Keith Brandt and John Koelzer's paper, "Diophantine Equations, Fibonacci Hyperbolas, and Quadratic Forms" has been accepted for publication in the Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences.
Congratulations to December's graduates:
Jon Adriano (Math)
Rob Hensley (Computer Science)
Paula Shorter's paper, "Simulation by Diffusion on a Manifold with Boundary: Applications to Ultrasonic Prenatal Medical Imaging" (coauthored with Daniel M. Keenan) was published in the SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics.
A Smart Polynomial Graphing Applet, a computer program written by Keith Brandt and Kevin Burger, has been published by the MAA's Digital Classroom Ressources.
On September 29, Anita Salem gave a talk entitled "Making Student Thinking Visible: A Close Reading of Online Conversations" at the University of Maryland. She presented her talk as part of the University of Maryland's Distinguished Scholar Series.
On October 1 and 2, several of our faculty gave presentations at the Kansas City Regional Mathematics Technology Expo, held here at Rockhurst. Judy Dilts, Professor of Biology at William Jewel College, and Anita Salem gave a presentation entitled "What every undergraduate biology student should know. A 2004 report from the Mathematical Association of America." John Cigas gave a presentation entitled "Teaching Proofs With On-line Visual Logic Puzzles." George O'Connor, Professor of Biology at Rockhurst, and John Koelzer gave a presentation entitled "Using Mathematica in an Integrated Math/Biology Course – Preliminary Report." Also, John Koelzer was a moderator for the discussion, "Mathematics Technology Explorations - Do Your Students See What You See?"
On October 16, John Koelzer and George O'Connor gave a joint presentation at the 48th Meeting of the Association of College and University Biology Educators at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The talk was entitled "A course in Mathematical Modeling in Biology - Preliminary Report" and it described an interdisciplinary course in mathematics and biology to be taught in the spring semester of 2005 at Rockhurst.
On October 20-24, Anita Salem attended a conference of the International Society of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Bloomington, IN. She was a panelist for the discussions "Organizing a Campus to Support the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" and "Fellowship Programs that Promote Faculty Change and Student Learning." She also presented her poster "Mentoring Newer Scholars of Teaching and Learning."
On November 8, Rockhurst students Jesse Bexten and Jonathon Vandergriff-Hughes placed third out of nine teams in the Mid-Central Region of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, held at the Univerisity of Missouri - Kansas City.
On November 11, Keith Brandt gave a talk entiteld "Two Mathematical Card Tricks" at Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph, MO. His talk was part of the Colloquium series for Missouri Western's department of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics.
On November 16, Nancy Donaldson gave a presenation at Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day, held at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, MO. Area high school girls were invited to campus for a day of enrichment activities designed to encourage them to continue their mathematical education and inform them about career opportunities which involve mathematics. Her workshop, entitled "Constructing the Bottle Graph," was designed as a constructivist graphing activity that dealt with rates of change that were not constant.
Congratulations to Rob Hensley, a computer science major who has won a Monahan Summer Research Fellowship to work on student research project entitled Joining Real Actors and Virtual Entities: An Exercise in Applied Physics Principles . Rob's project, which will be supervised by Prof. John Cigas, is an attempt to allow the movements of a person (a “real actor”) to interact with objects that are generated on a computer screen (the “virtual entities’). In this case, the virtual entities will be computer-generated balls that the human user can “juggle” on-screen. A video camera will capture the image of the user (that is, an image of a person consistently in motion) and combine the image with the digital balls; the resulting composite image will be displayed on a computer screen. The digital balls will then react realistically to the user’s interaction with them. When the user’s on-screen image “strikes” the ball, the ball should behave in a believable manner, taking into account the laws of physics (gravity, trajectory, etc.).
Congratulations to our most recent graduates:
Emily Bussen (Math)
Steve Cisetti (Computer Science)
Matthew Duran (Physics and Math)
Jenny Simmons (Math and Finance)
Deborah Turner-Bey (Math and Physics)
On March 25, Nancy Donaldson defended her doctoral dissertation in Science Education and Physics (interdisciplinary). Her Ph.D. will be awarded by the University of Missouri--Kansas City. Congratulations, Nancy!
Nancy Donaldson gave a presentation entitled "Examining Grade 4 - 7 Teachers' Attitudes Toward Teaching Physics Concepts" at a conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) in Vancouver, BC April 1 - 4.
John Koelzer presented a paper entitled "Bootstrapping our Way to the Product Rule" at the spring meeting of the Missouri Section of Mathematical Association of America held in Cape Girardeau, MO in April.
Nancy Donaldson presented a paper entitled "Investigating Student Learning in an Application Based Physics Course" at the American Association of Physics Teachers conference in Miami in January.
Nancy Donaldson and Mary Haskins (Biology) presented a teacher workshop entitled "Constructing the Bottle Graph" at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Conference at Tan-Tar-A in February.
Nancy Donaldson presented a paper titled " Examining grade 4 - 7 teachers' attitudes toward teaching physics concepts" at NARST (National Association of Research in Science Education) in Vancouver, April 1 - 4, 2004. The paper will present data retrieved from her summer 2003 CPU workshop.
Keith Brandt’s paper, "Studying Mathematical Induction and Recursive Programming Together" (coauthored with Margaret Richey), was published in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges. In April, he gave a talk based on this paper at the Central Plains meeting of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges held in Warrensburg, MO.
Nancy Donaldson received the Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship for 2003-2004 academic year in the UMKC doctoral program. She also received the UMKC Women's Council Outstanding Merit Award 2003-2004.
Nancy Donaldson and Shelly Chabon (Communication Science Disorders) will present a poster at the American Speech and Hearing Association Conference in Chicago on November 13, 2003 entitled "Physics for the Phaint of Heart."
Nancy Donaldson and Bob Hegarty successfully completed the summer 2003 CPU workshop. 30 teachers completed 106 hours of professional development hours in a 2-week summer workshop and two fall workshops. Pre/post data was collected in the summer of 2003 on teacher attitudes towards teaching physics and content knowledge in force and motion and current electricity. Content data is still being analyzed, and results on improving teachers' attitudes toward teaching physics were statistically significant. The grant work will continue throughout the school year with visits to teachers' classrooms and pre/post collection of attitude and content data from the CPU teachers' students.
Kevin Burger wrote a review for the MAA of "The Mathematics of Juggling" by Burkard Polster in July 2003. The review is posted on MAA Online.
Kevin Burger attended a two-day workshop on mathematical biology at the MAA Mathfest in Boulder, CO, July 2003.
Anita Salem continues to serve as Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences.
The department welcomes its newest member, Sheri Adams. Sheri is in a one-year visiting position and comes to us after 31 years at Truman High School in Independence, MO. While at Truman, Sheri was the chair of her district's mathematics department, an instructor for UMKC's Mathematics and Physics Institute, and an adjunct instructor for Blue River Community College. She received her BS in mathematics from UMKC and her MS in mathematics education from Central Missouri State University.
In June of 2003 Sheri Adams and Dr. Wesley Bird represented the state of Missouri in Washington D. C. as reviewers of the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) assessment items for the year 2005. During the academic year 2003-4 Sheri will work with Paula Shorter and John Koelzer administering the Title III Grant, Course-Embedded Assessment in the Calculus I and Calculus II Sequence. Additional assessment duties include working with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in November to score the pilot, pull anchor papers, review assessment items, and write new items for the grade level assessment for No Child Left Behind/MAP.
Paula Shorter and Merrill Goldberg presented talks at the 13th Annual Kansas City Regional Mathematics Technology EXPO, held at Rockhurst on October 3 & 4. Paula's talk was entitled "Using Mathematica Computer Simulation Exercises to Enhance Learning in Calculus-based Probability and Statistics." Merrill's talk was entitled "Combinatorics and Discrete Probability Using Microsoft Office."
Paula Shorter's paper, "Simulation by Diffusion on a Manifold with Boundary: Applications to Ultrasonic Prenatal Medical Imaging" (coauthored with Daniel Keenan), has been accepted for publication in the SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics) Journal of Applied Mathematics.
Keith Brandt’s paper, "An Inversion Formula for Putnam Data" (coauthored with Don Vestal), was published in the March, 2003 issue Crux Mathematicorum with Mathematical Mayhem, a publication of the Canadian Mathematical Society.
Kevin Burger’s paper, "Teaching Two-Dimensional Array Concepts in Java With Image Processing Examples," and John Cigas's paper, "An Introductory Course in Network Administration," have been accepted for presentation at the 34th SIGSCE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, sponsored by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). The symposium will be held February 19-23 in Reno, Nevada. The proceedings of the symposium will be published by ACM Press.
Anita Salem will have an article in the March issue of MAA FOCUS, "Curriculum Foundations Workshop in Biology" coauthored with Judy Dilts, a biologist at William Jewell College. She is also giving a workshop at AAHE (American Association of Higher Education) in March on Collaborative Efforts to Promote the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This workshop will be done in conjunction with Creighton University and the University of Missouri at Colombia. These were the two institutions that cohosted last year's SOTL conference at Rockhurst.
Rena Shull and Norene Vail Lowery (University of Houston) have written a chapter of "Preparing to Teach Mathematics." The book will be published in the spring of 2003.
Nancy Donaldson and Bob Hegarty have received a grant from the Missouri Department of Higher Education. It is a Cycle-1 DHE Improving Teacher Quality Grant for the amount of $133,666, and the time frame is from now to about June, 2004. The main activity will be a 12 day summer workshop (from June 12 to June 26) with about 30 middle school (and a few high school) science teachers. The workshop will concentrate on two areas of physics, force and motion, and current electricity. The teachers will hopefully improve their understanding of the basic science and learn how to use computer-aided instruction tools to enhance the classroom experience. Follow-up sessions in the fall and spring will ensure that the methods worked on in the summer are being implemented properly (and work!). A few administrators will be participating, so that the teachers can expect continued support for their efforts.
Anita Salem is serving as Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences.
John Koelzer is serving as chair of the Science Division.
Nancy Donaldson has accepted a tenure-track position in physics.
Bob Hegarty won the Teaching Excellence Award, which is awarded each year by the Rockhurst faculty.
Paula Shorter is beginning her second year as chair of the department.
The department welcomes its newest member, Rena Shull. Prof. Schull received her Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Missouri in 1998. She will fill in for Anita Salem while she serves as dean of the division.