The Section Meeting for 2022 was held VIRTUALLY (online), Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23. The meeting was organized by Metropolitan State University Denver and hosted by Hawkes Learning.
Rocky Mt MAA 2022 – Recording YouTube Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuf6LhiYihIs5c5fyXRORhSwR_6t_w6Is
Next year’s meeting is tentatively planned for April 21-22, in person at Black Hills State University. See the Spring 2023 Section Meeting page for updates.
Meeting Information
Invited Speakers
Jennifer Quinn: President of MAA, Professor of Mathematics, University of Washington Tacoma
Dominic Klyve: Editor of College Math Journal, Professor of Mathematics, Central Washington University
Jose Perea: MAA NAM Section Lecturer Program (National Association of Mathematicians), Associate Professor of Mathematics, Michigan State University
See below for details on plenary talks.
Included Events
Executive Committee Meeting: Thursday, April 21, 5-6PM
Chairs and Liaisons Virtual Lunch: Friday, April 22, 12:00-12:45PM (Organized by Gulden Karakok and Dan Swenson)
Section Business Meeting: Saturday, April 23, 8:50-9:50AM (everyone is invited to come)
A full schedule is coming soon.
Special Sessions and Panels
Research in undergraduate mathematics education at Rocky Mountain Section
Organized by Gulden Karakok, University of Northern Colorado
This session presents research reports on undergraduate mathematics education. The session features research studies that aim at understanding and improving undergraduate students’ experiences of learning mathematics as well as studies focus on exploring teaching of undergraduate mathematics courses. The goals of this session are to disseminate educational studies to the mathematics community of Rocky Mountain Section and to facilitate conversations on the impact of research findings in undergraduate mathematics education. Examples of presentations include studies about students’ thinking, design and evaluation of research-based curricular materials, evaluation of professional development of instructors, and teaching practices.
Innovative ideas in active learning of mathematics
Sponsored by Four Corners COMMIT; Organized by Nathaniel Miller and Gulden Karakok, University of Northern Colorado
The goal of this session is to disseminate various teaching practices that are centered on actively engaging students learning of mathematics. As Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) community continues to transform students’ mathematical experiences, we invite you to share your ways of utilizing such teaching practices at undergraduate mathematics courses.
Panel: News you can use - Updates from the Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics (CCTM)
Panelists: Mary Pittman (president); Kim Smith (vice-president); Joanie Funderburk (past president); Joseph Bolz (treasurer); Megan Korponic (NCTM representative); Raymond Johnson (CDE representative, Math Content Specialist); Gulden Karakok (MAA-RM representative)
The Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics (CCTM, the Colorado affiliate of NCTM) provides networking, advocacy, and support for mathematics teachers across the state of Colorado. Join us to learn about the work of CCTM, such as conference, webinars, and the Colorado Mathematics Teacher, our CCTM journal. We will engage in some mathematics together and make connections to the Colorado Academic standards and effective mathematics teaching practices. The session will also provide opportunity for participants to share ideas and insights for supporting mathematics teaching and learning in the state of Colorado. The CCTM Board is pleased to organize this panel as part of our efforts to strengthen connections and communication between the MAA Rocky Mountain Section and CCTM.
Panel: The State of the State Standards
Presenters: Joanie Funderburk, CCTM Past President and Colorado Academic Standards review and revision committee chair; Raymond Johnson, Colorado Department of Education mathematics specialist
The Colorado Academic Standards for mathematics were last revised in 2018. (No) thanks to the pandemic, understanding these standards and being innovative with curriculum and instruction to meet these goals is as important as ever. In this session, we'll answer three big questions: (1) What are the big ideas and major features of the standards that mathematicians and mathematics educators in higher education need to know? (2) What are some ways K-12 teachers use the standards to guide their instruction and curriculum? (3) What are the current conversations that could impact the next revision of Colorado's mathematics standards, such as those about pathways and data science? Although this session will have some Colorado-specific references in it, Colorado is a Common Core state and the session will be designed to be useful for those across the MAA Rocky Mountain Section.
Spring Book Sale
Associated with the Spring Section meeting is the AMS/MAA Press annual sale, allowing MAA members and meeting participants to receive 35% off list price on select titles. See the sale announcement for more details.
Plenary Talks
Epic Math Battles: Counting vs. Matching
Friday, 1:05-1:55PM — Jennifer Quinn
Abstract: Which technique is mathematically superior? The audience will judge of this tongue-in-cheek combinatorial competition between the mathematical techniques of counting and matching. Be prepared to explore positive and alternating sums involving binomial coefficients, Fibonacci numbers, and other beautiful combinatorial quantities. How are the terms in each sum concretely interpreted? What is being counted? What is being matched? Which is superior? You decide.
Speaker Bio: Jenny Quinn is President of the Mathematical Association of America and professor of mathematics at the University of Washington Tacoma. She earned her BA, MS, and PhD from Williams College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin, respectively. She received MAA’s 2007 Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching and a 2006 Beckenbach Book award for Proofs That Really Count: The Art of Combinatorial Proof, co-authored with Arthur Benjamin. As a combinatorial scholar, Jenny thinks that beautiful proofs are as much art as science. Simplicity, elegance, transparency, and fun should be the driving principles. She strives to bring this same ethic to her classroom, administrative work, and professional service.
Committed to making mathematics accessible, appreciated, and humane especially during the global pandemic, Jenny and the #TacomaMath workgroup of the STEAM Learning network chalked puzzles outdoors and produced Math Around Town Videos to create a culture of love for math in the community. In addition, Jenny began the blog Math in the Time of Corona where she chronicles her experiences on emergency remote teaching of mathematics, maintaining humanity, and building community in isolation. And speaking of community, she hosts virtual social hours to bring MAA members together monthly. Look for announcements on MAA Connect.
The Underlying Topology of Data
Saturday, 10:00-10:50AM — Jose Perea
Abstract: Topology, and particularly algebraic topology, seeks to develop computable invariants to quantify the shape of abstract spaces. This talk will be about how such invariants can be used to analyze scientific data sets, in tasks like time series analysis, semi-supervised learning and dimensionality reduction. I will use several examples to illustrate real applications of these ideas.
Speaker Bio: Jose Perea is an associate professor in the department of mathematics and the Khoury college of computer sciences. Prior to Northeastern, he held positions as an assistant professor of CMSE and Mathematics at Michigan State (2015 – 2021), and as a visiting assistant professor of Mathematics at Duke University (2011 – 2015). He holds a PhD in Mathematics from Stanford University (2011) and a BSc in Mathematics from Universidad del Valle, Colombia (Valedictorian, Summa cum laude, 2006). He is the inaugural 2022-2024 lecturer for the Mathematical Association of America and the National Association of Mathematics, a recipient of a 2020 NSF CAREER award, a 2020 honoree of Lathisms (Hispanic heritage month), and a 2018 honoree of Mathematically Gifted and Black (black history month).
Mathematical Fights! The seedy underbelly of mathematical history
Saturday, 1:00-1:50PM — Dominic Klyve
Abstract: Although students are often led to believe that mathematics is a purely rational, unemotional, and orderly field of study, history shows that this is often not the case. This talk will discuss some of the greatest fights in the history of mathematics. We will hear stories of friendships destroyed and national rivalries heightened because of disagreements about underlying mathematics. We will consider what these fights teach us about the nature of mathematics, and we will learn some interesting math on the way.
Speaker Bio: Dominic Klyve (KLEE-vee) is a Professor of Mathematics at Central Washington University. He is the author of more than 60 papers in number theory, the history of mathematics and science, and applied statistics. His interdisciplinary works have appeared in journals ranging from Gastrointestinal Endoscopy to Shakespeare Quarterly. For the last six years, Klyve has served as a PI on $1.5 Million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop classroom materials to teach mathematics from Primary Historical Sources. During 2021, he took a leave of absence from his university to work in the role of “Lead Polymath” and Know Labs, a Seattle-based tech start-up. He was a 2014 winner of the MAA’s Alder Award, a national teaching award for young faculty who have a demonstrated impact within and beyond the classroom. He currently serves as Editor of the College Mathematics Journal.