Math Department Minutes –9/2/2014



Math Department Minutes –9/2/2014Present: N. Bahaji, D. Lawrence, G. Grohs, A. Gupta, E. Rudzinski, C. Moushon, C. Deterding, J. Phillips, J. Meadows, N. Scherger, D. Kernler, K. Campbell, T. Martin, D. Flahaven, K. Beynon, G. WheatonAnnouncementsCollege Night is October 7th 5:30pm-8:15pm. Volunteers needed. Dave L. and Greg W. have volunteered.AMATYC Conference is November 13-16 in Nashville DePaul University’s 1st annual Community College Partnership Faculty Conference: Friday, September 26Contact: David Villarroel at dvillarr@depaul.edu Dan K. is going.The 5th Annual Best Practices Learning Symposium for Developmental Educators at Kishwaukee College on October 21st Presenters: send proposals to Tricia.Hernandez@kishwaukeecollege.edu by 9/21 If anyone wants more information, contact Nicole S.NSF improving undergraduate STEM education grants Nicole S. will provide more information to Kris C., and any other people who are interested.STEM video - ideas to Jean What would go in the video? (student interviews, Math Lab, faculty interviews, integration contest, online resources offered by the math department, Geogebra, Maple, Smart board.Jean P. will send out an email for a group to be formed to discuss this further. Greg W. has offered to help.Graphing CalculatorsNew classroom set available (Naima) There is a new set of chargeable graphing calculators (TI-84 Plus). Please contact Naima if you’d like to borrow the set (for an exam day, for example). Be aware the newer TI-nSpire has CAS Please be aware that students may be using these CAS calculators (which can do polynomial factoring, for example), even in the testing center. Be sure to put specific calculator instructions on your testing center forms (“only a TI-83 or TI-84 is allowed.”) In addition, Kris C. has provided more information regarding the testing center:“They have TI-83, TI-83 plus, and TI-84 plus calculators available in the testing center. On the cover sheet, you can request that the student use a calculator from the testing center and they will honor/enforce it. They do not know how to reset the calculators, so if you want that done you must provide instructions on how to do it. They want electronic versions of the tests sent if it is in word or pdf format. Anyone using a test generator is going to have to print it out themselves and supply enough copies for the students since they do not have access to and are not familiar with programs like testgen. As the semester goes along, I will keep you updated on any issues that I have since I think I make a far greater use of the testing center than pretty much anyone else in the department.” Thanks Kris! Old BusinessHhAssessment Assessment reports next meeting (096 – Nicole; 098/099 – Chalyce; 114 – Terri)FA14: MTH 096 and 114 (both continued from spring)SP15: MTH 090 and 112; Committee needed. Eva and Jen offered to help with MTH 090. Anu and Gary offered to help with MTH 112.If more are interested, please contact one of these volunteers. Another interesting question that arose from this discussion is: How long should we let a departmental final go before modifying/updating it? Let’s think about this for the future. *In addition, we need to figure out if we’re redoing the departmental 098 final or the 098 instructor file objectives for the course (or neither, or both). Here is what was in May’s minutes concerning this:“Some thought the new MTH 098 final exam may need to be modified to better align with the majority of instruction of MTH 098 material. How can we better prepare instructors to prepare their students for this departmental final? Should we modify the instructor files or outlines to emphasize other aspects of the course material (conceptual understanding and multiple representation connecting), in order to better prepare instructors? We may need to provide some supplemental materials in addition to the textbook and test banks for all instructors. We have decided to form a committee for MTH 098 to look at possibly modifying the instructor file and course outline. The following have volunteered to be on the committee: Greg, Naima, Ken, Gary, Dave, and Jean.” Scholarship Update (Chalyce/Terri) There are two awards totaling $1,100 together. Chalyce put together a description of the two types of scholarships available to math students. Thanks Chalyce! We are the ultimate deciders for who gets these scholarships, and so we identify and evaluate applying students. She will attach a DRAFT of this with the DRAFT of the minutes to ask for any feedback. Once feedback is given and any modifications are made, we can then take the FINAL version of the fliers and distribute them to faculty and students.Reminder: Equivalency chart information neededThe following are assignments for comparing whether or not other institutions’ pre-algeba, beginning algebra, intermediate algebra, and geometry are comparable with ours. Go check out the outlines for these courses at these other institutions to see if they are reasonable to warrant the courses’ transferability to ECC.(Nicole-Oakton; Greg-Kish; Kris-Harper and COD; Chalyce-Waubonsee; Terri-CLC; Naima-McHenry; Ken-Truman)Please email Nicole S. your gathered information. (Don’t worry about other school’s MTH 098 not covering exponentials. Our MTH 098 just touches the surface of this topic.)NIU Bridges to Success – one of our goals? (Chalyce) We won’t continue much here.Academic Advisors meeting feedback (Chalyce/Nicole)One interesting point: Students in learning communities at ECC have a perception (perhaps from their high school experience) that learning communities are for “slow” students or “low grade” students. We may need to redefine learning communities to better inform students of their purpose. Nicole and Chalyce are generally optimistic concerning the quality of service that has been/will be provided by our new advisors.*Dan K. has 9 honors students in his Statistics class, and Ken B. has 8 honors students in hi Calculus I class. New Student Convocation Campus Jam feedback (Dave)This was a great time with a ton of students present!Math Lab Update (Terri)Graphing calculator workshops for MTH 112 (and 098) students will soon be coming! MTH 202 (Kris)Kris C. will be meeting with the Curriculum Committee to determine a timeline to propose this revision to the department, etc… *For anyone teaching Calculus II or III this semester, please inform your students of the opportunity to take Linear Algebra in the SP15 semester. Also, for current Calc. III students: taking Diff EQ and Linear Algebra during the same semester is a great pair with many connections!New BusinessRemoval of MTH 101 (Chalyce/ Nicole)No need to keep it.MTH 090, MTH 097, MTH 201, and MTH 125 instructor files (Chalyce)Eva will update MTH 097, Greg will update MTH 201, Anu can update MTH 090, and Terri will update MTH 125.Lab space (Chalyce/ Nicole)We’ve had a problem finding free computer classroom time for certain classes to occasionally use. According to Dr. McGee, non-hybrid courses should not be scheduled in computer classrooms for full-semester use unless the instructor can provide good justification to him. We will need to discuss further whether hybrid classes need to be in computer classrooms. James can attend a future meeting to discuss this. For now, if you schedule to use a lab classroom, but are flexible and would be willing to change days/classrooms, please make a note on the google calendar concerning such flexibility.Catalog language regarding college courses transferred into ECC (Nicole)We have decided that we still want to honor a grade of a “D” from another course (credit-bearing course credit) as enabling a student to directly retake that course at ECC. We need to make sure certain schools (Iowa State, etc…) who have students who took Diff EQ and got a “D” in it, are not allowed to retake Diff EQ here at ECC, because they only have a 2-semester Calculus program there, which wouldn’t be sufficient prerequisite knowledge for our Diff EQ. Trigonometry requirement for 133 (Nicole)Nicole will bring more information at a future meeting. We will see what high school pre-calculus courses cover what amounts of trig.*We will do a restaurant, “adults only” departmental get-together, so more details to come! Thanks Dan! ................
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