[RUME] PCAST Report

[David Olson]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 7:52 PM, Cathy Kessel <cbkessel at earthlink.net>wrote:

> I'll piggyback on David's message!
> ...
> To me, a major in a "mathematics-intensive field" seems like a good start
> and may be really helpful with regard to modeling. However, the MET report
> recommends types of courses that I suspect the PCAST writers did not have
> in mind, although such courses are "strong [mathematics] content-specific
> pedagogical preparation."
>

I hope you manage to push that point.  I often hear from former students
who trained as engineers but went back to school to get a teaching
certificate in mathematics.  And many of them are the type of people whom I
would want to teach my kids.  Their practical experience with math is a
huge advantage, especially for that, "What is this stuff good for?"
question.  But they will be more successful if they get a better background
in mathematical pedagogy.


FWIW, my reading of the PCAST report is that "remedial mathematics" likely
refers to calculus prep courses (the "computer-based" comment suggests
Virginia Tech), and "college mathematics" is probably a reference to the
space partly occupied by calculus. I'd speculate that they want to replace
calculus with a course somewhere between applied math and mathematical
science.

In that space, my student experience was that theoretical physicists did a
much better job than pure mathematicians.  So I am not surprised to see
that two physicists co-chaired the working group (how do you have a
committee with four co-chairs?).

Calculus reform, take two, perhaps on a new battleground: Scientific
Modeling with Calculus and Computers.  I don't think RUME will have any
trouble following the trend, but the broader mathematical community will
have issues.  Maybe this will come to nothing, but maybe it will last a
decade.  Somebody smart should start an ethnographic study of mathematics
faculty and their responses.  Clear it with the Human Subjects Review
board, and you might get to count chats in the faculty lounge as research.
 The downside is that you'll have to transcribe faculty meetings.


David Olson

Relink to David Bressoud's piece.

http://launchings.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-engaging-to-excel.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://betterfilecabinet.com/pipermail/rume_betterfilecabinet.com/attachments/20120408/7917d011/attachment-0001.htm>