At Manhattan College, secondary mathematics education students take a capstone course designed specifically for them. In this course, students revisit important topics in the high school curriculum from a mathematically advanced perspective; incorporating the mathematical knowledge they have attained in their college mathematics classes to an…

Although the use of traditional just-in-time teaching techniques has long been viewed positively by students and instructors in undergraduate calculus courses, past studies in this area have not addressed gains in student achievement with respect to specific calculus topics. This paper investigates the latter by administering modified just-in-time…

Gabriel's Horn is a solid of revolution commonly featured in calculus textbooks as a counter-intuitive example of a solid having finite volume but infinite surface area. Other examples of solids with surprising geometrical finitude relationships have also appeared in the literature. This article cites several intriguing examples (some of fractal…

In this article, we report on a semester-long study of the incorporation into our general chemistry course, of advanced algebraic and computer algebra techniques for solving chemical equilibrium problems. The method presented here is an alternative to the commonly used concentration table method for describing chemical equilibria in general…

A traditional abstract algebra course typically consists of the professor stating and then proving a sequence of theorems. As an alternative to this classical structure, the students could be expected to discover some of the theorems even before they are motivated by classroom examples. This can be done by using a software system to explore a…

We describe our approach to incorporating a civic engagement component into a quantitative literacy (QL) course and the resulting gains in student learning, confidence, and awareness of local civic issues. We revised the existing QL course by including semester-long group projects involving local community issues that students could investigate…

Mathematical induction is one of the major proof techniques taught to mathematics students in the first years of their undergraduate degrees. In addition to its importance to mathematics, induction is also required for computer science and related disciplines. However, even if the concepts of a proof by induction are taught and understood, many…

The study documents the extent to which high school teachers reflect on their need to revise and extend their mathematical and practicing knowledge. In this context, teachers worked on a set of tasks as a part of an inquiring community that promoted the use of different computational tools in problem solving approaches. Results indicated that the…

We describe exercises in which students use PascGaloisJE to formulate conjectures about certain binomial identities which hold when the binomial coefficients are interpreted as elements in the cyclic group Z[subscript p] of integers modulo a prime integer "p". In addition to having an appealing visual component, these exercises are open-ended and…

In 2001, Black Hills State University (BHSU) redesigned college algebra to use the computer-based mastery learning program, Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces [1], historical development of concepts modules, whole class discussions, cooperative activities, relevant applications problems, and many fewer lectures. This resulted in a 21%…

This article presents a project for a differential equations class using an inverse problem based on the second order differential equation that models an electrical circuit. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Solving indeterminate algebraic equations in integers is a classic topic in the mathematics curricula across grades. At the undergraduate level, the study of solutions of non-linear equations of this kind can be motivated by the use of technology. This article shows how the unity of geometric contextualization and spreadsheet-based amplification…

Most college algebra courses are offered in the spirit of preparing the students to move on toward calculus. In reality, only a vanishingly small fraction of the million students a year who take these courses ever get to calculus. This article builds a strong case for the need to change the focus in college algebra to one that better meets the…

For over a decade it has been a common observation that a "fog" passes over the course in linear algebra once abstract vector spaces are presented. See [2, 3]. We show how this fog may be cleared by having the students translate "abstract" vector-space problems to isomorphic "concrete" settings, solve the "concrete" problem either by hand or with…

Brownian motion is an important stochastic process used in modelling the random evolution of stock prices. In their 1973 seminal paper--which led to the awarding of the 1997 Nobel prize in Economic Sciences--Fischer Black and Myron Scholes assumed that the random stock price process is described (i.e., generated) by Brownian motion. Despite its…