2009 AHPCRC Education Program at UTEP

The 2009 AHPCRC Education Program at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) aims to increase the number of middle-school students capable of and interested in technical subjects by equipping middle-school teachers of mathematics and their students with appropriate motivating examples of the usefulness of mathematical concepts and by providing both the teachers and students with interactive computational technologies that can be used to refine associated mathematical knowledge and skills. In some cases different instances of an example are encapsulated in a computational tool, while in other cases the examples stand by themselves and can be, if desired, paired with computational tools.
The project was launched on 30 April 2009 by a visit from Dr. Robert M. Panoff, founder and Executive Director of Shodor, a non-profit education and research corporation dedicated to the reform and improvement of mathematics and science education by appropriate incorporation of computational and communication technologies. Our project uses the Shodor Web site as a main resource of computational tools, especially the hands-on, exploratory-learning tools associated with Project Interactivate (www.shodor.org/Interactivate).

A team of three undergraduate students (Victor Jordan Barraza, Fernando Nava, and Jason Shultes), one graduate student (Oscar Andrade), two faculty members (David Novick and Patricia Teller), and one research staff member (Sarala Arunagiri) in the Department of Computer Science worked through the summer to develop a set of prototypes to motivate concepts related to probability and to refine the understanding and application of these concepts. The examples and associated computational tools that the team produced have been mapped to lessons and problems in the mathematics textbooks used by the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.

A Web site associated with the project will disseminate the project’s products—the motivating examples and computational tools—as well as the mappings of examples and tools to textbook lessons and problems. Specific dissemination is aimed at middle-school teachers in EPISD, at faculty and staff who conduct outreach programs, and at AHPCRC partners. A section of the Web site will enable users of the examples and tools to provide feedback on the educational materials and their usefulness.

The project team worked with the staff of UTEP’s Educational Talent Search (ETS) program—a TRIO program (see below) working with more than 600 low-income middle- and high-school youth in the El Paso area to provide information about college admission, careers, scholarships, financial aid and SAT/ACT preparation. ETS staff and the project team held a workshop for middle-school students on Monday, 10 August 2009, to get feedback on the prototypes developed to date. Eighteen 7th and 8th grade students from two schools participated. The ETS staff recruited the students (we developed brochures for this purpose), brought the students to campus, fed them breakfast, brought them to the workshop, and then took them to lunch, provided a campus tour in the form of a scavenger hunt, and returned them to the schools. In the workshop, the team’s undergraduate students presented some of the examples they developed, along with some of the computational tools they identified. The examples included:
• the “yield” of the iPod manufacturing process (i.e., the percentage of iPods produced that meet the specified standards of manufacture, which can be estimated by testing a sample set)—a study of sample spaces, probabilities, and algebra;
• the creation of an enhanced version of the paper, rock, scissors game—a study of probabilities and fairness; and
• the evolution of the solution of Rubik’s cube—a study of the number of possible permutations

At the end of the workshop, each student was given a certificate of participation and a Rubik’s cube.

As part of the workshop, the middle-school participants provided feedback on the motivating examples and the tools that they tried out, and the project team compiled simple descriptive statistics from their responses. The most popular computational tools were a simulation of fire in a forest using a grid populated with trees and a simulation of the population trends of a world of grass, rabbits, and foxes, again using a grid to implement the simulation. Preliminary review of the feedback and the reaction of the students and staff indicated that the project has an excellent chance of success!

The project's next step, slated for this Fall, is a workshop for middle-school math teachers. This workshop is being designed to motivate the teachers to adopt the examples developed by the project and to develop examples of their own. In addition, the teachers will be encouraged to adopt the computational tools identified by the project, and to identify other computational tools that support their lesson plans. The workshop will give the teachers opportunities to provide the project team with feedback and to influence the direction of the project. During the Fall semester, the project's undergraduate students will be available to work with the teachers and visit the schools to aid the teachers in the use of the teaching materials.

The Federal TRIO Programs are educational opportunity outreach programs designed to motivate and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. TRIO includes six outreach and support programs targeted to serve and assist low-income, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to post-baccalaureate programs. TRIO also includes a training program for directors and staff of TRIO projects and a dissemination partnership program to encourage the replication or adaptation of successful practices of TRIO projects at institutions and agencies that do not have TRIO grants.
Source: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html