NEMATYC NEWS Vol 10 No 1

I hope you had a lovely summer despite the weather and are enjoying the excitement and energy of a new academic year. NEMATYC members voted last April on a new constitution. The major changes were to allow the president’s term of office to be two years followed by two years as past-president. Therefore, I will be president until April, 2002. The vice-president has a one year term and is no longer responsible for the annual meeting. It is the Executive Committee’s responsibility to locate a host college for the annual conference/meeting and members who will chair the conference. For 2001, the annual meeting will be at Middlesex Community College and the following year at North Shore Community College. The Executive Committee would like you to consider volunteering your college as host for the 2003 annual meeting. If you have questions about what this might entail, please contact any Executive Committee member. You can find a list with their e-mail addresses inside the newsletter.

Bernice Bowdoin and Sue Hoy did an excellent job chairing the NEMATYC 2000 conference. With the help of their colleagues and college, the conference featured 18 presenters over two days, a plenary session after lunch, and exhibitors for both days. The Friday night dinner, speaker, and tour of the Historical Society gave a real flavor of Fall River. All our thanks go to Sue, Bernie, their colleagues, and the Bristol CC administration for their work and support of NEMATYC. It is greatly appreciated.

The Executive Committee met this summer at Mass Bay CC in Wellesley. Past President Ted Panitz chairs the Nominations Committee. He needs nominations for the following offices: Vice President (1 yr. term), Treasurer (3 yr. term), and one at-large member (2 yr. term). If you would like to nominate yourself or a colleague, please e-mail Ted at tpanitz@capecod.net

Vice President Maureen Woolhouse offered Middlesex Community College as host for the 2001 NEMATYC conference. She and Carol Hay are the conference chairpersons with Bernie Bowdoin from Bristol CC as exhibit chair. Maureen did not expect to have two positions on the NEMATYC Executive Committee this year, but that is what has happened. I want to thank her for this extra effort and dedication to the association. Please make Maureen’s and Carol’s job easier by answering the call for presenters as early as possible. If you would like to recommend someone as speaker, please contact Maureen or Carol.

The 26^th AMATYC is November 9 – 12 in Chicago. This will be the culmination of a year-long celebration of AMATYC’s 25^th anniversary. Each affiliate has been invited to prepare a poster-type display. Presently, I am in charge of this project. If you have any pictures of the AMATYC Boston Conference, please let me know. Our idea is to feature that conference as one of our major projects and then give our history plus information from our last NEMATYC CONFERENCE. We would appreciate you sending us any information, materials, or suggestions as quickly as possible

Last September, AMATYC President Elect Phil Mahler sent me an overview of a report by the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future entitled Solving the Dilemmas of Teacher Supply, Demand and Standards: How We Can Ensure a Competent, Caring, and Qualified Teacher for Every Child. One part of the report copied below should be used as an excellent reason why your college should support your attending conferences. I know this information is more for K—12, but it applies to all teachers. The conclusion is: “investments in teacher knowledge are the most productive means for increasing student learning.”

A 1996 analysis of 60 studies revealed that each $500 invested in a teacher’s education was associated with a 0.22 unit rise in student test scores and surpassed returns from equivalent investments in teacher experience (0.18 unit rise), teacher salaries (0.16 unit rise) or reduced pupil/teacher ratios (0.04 unit rise).

I will be attending the NCTM Eastern Regional Conference in Springfield, MA from November 2—4, the AMATYC Conference in Chicago and our NEMATYC Math Odyssey at Middlesex CC in Lowell on April 20 - 21, 2001. If you are attending any of these meetings, please introduce yourself.

Consider nominating one of your colleagues for the Teaching Excellence Award. We need a minimum of 3 nominees from the Northeast Region in order to present a regional award. There will be a session in Chicago to learn more about completing the packet. The deadline is December 11, 2000. On-line information is available at http://www.amatyc.org/awards/TE-Award/TE2001.html.

Plans for the annual conference in Chicago on November 9 - 12, 2000, are progressing. In addition to the AMATYC website, you can visit the conference website at http://www.bacnet.edu/amatyc2000/ designed by Tim Grant and sponsored by IMACC. I hope you are each planning on attending. If so, now is the time to make your hotel reservations at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Hotel. Detailed information on the hotel and travel discounts may be found in the spring flyer that was mailed in April or at the AMATYC website (www.amatyc.org). The Chicago conference will feature a symposium, "Issues Surrounding the Mathematics Preparation of Elementary School Teachers" that will be limited to the first 100 registrants.

The silver anniversary year will close with a special Friday night event that will include distinctly Chicago entertainment. There will be an Avenue of the Affiliates that will provide an opportunity for each affiliate to highlight the history and activities of the affiliate. I hope each of the Northeast affiliates takes advantage of this opportunity.

Strategic Planning has been part of each of the last few board meetings. Last fall the board approved the goals and objectives of the strategic plan. The task at this board meeting was to complete the work to define the specific strategies that AMATYC will carry out in the next year to meet the objectives. Strategies to be completed in subsequent years still need to be finalized. An outgrowth of the Strategic Plan is that a task force will be appointed by the President to identify a timetable for the review and possible revision of the Crossroads.

Steve Terry, of Ricks College, was appointed an AMATYC Consulting Professor for the Fall Semester 2000. He proposed updating the AMATYC Affiliation Booklet. Carolyn Neptune, of Johnson County Community College, is updating the AMATYC publication, The Two-Year College Teacher of Mathematics has a Spring 2000 AMATYC Consulting Professor. AMATYC members can apply for consideration as an AMATYC Consulting Professor to carry out a project of benefit to AMATYC, usually while on sabbatical from their college. Karen Pagel, of Dona Ana Branch Community College, was appointed as the Web Resources Project Director. This project is being funded through the generosity of the AMATYC Foundation.

During most of the evenings spent in Memphis, the board members were holding committee meetings to maximize the work that could be completed while we were together. The budget committee spent a long evening working on the 2001 budget which will be finalized at the November 2000 board meeting prior to the conference.

Two-year mathematics education is in the middle of “interesting times.” Our focus is anything but narrow. If a student enters our colleges taking our lowest level course, they would spend a long time getting to Calculus III. The line between what is “preparatory’ and what is “transfer level” is vague and differs widely from one institution to the next. The waters get muddied by lack of good guidance from state educational authorities and the willingness of some transfer institutions to take almost anything. We, as educators want students to have a solid foundation and still wish to give transfer credit where it is due. The decision where to put the dividing line is not easy. We all tend to agree Algebra I is on the low side and Precalculus (functions, logs, exponentials, and trig) is on the transfer side. Just what do we do in that middle ground without giving transfer credit for preparatory work or only developmental credit for transfer level work?

Another contributing factor to our difficulty in placing the dividing line is the gentle but steady shift away from the pure algorithmic approach to everything. Many high schools are getting away from the old Algebra-1, Geometry, Algebra-Trigonometry track and going to a more integrated approach. SIMMS, ARISE, CMP, IMP, and CONNECTIONS are five programs initially funded by the NSF. They are worth our attention (ARISE is this writer’s favorite) as they implement the NCTM Standards and are in line with our Crossroads. We share in the excitement and are offering more Quantitative Reasoning courses. Why then, should the preparatory-transfer line be stated so often in terms of traditional analytic/algorithmic approach?

I do not have the answer, I only have the hope the question gets raised and hotly debated in our Mathematics Departments. The best answer will come from our collective wisdom and not dictated from above.

The Ohio State University Technology College Short Course (CSC) Program offers free short courses of 1 to 3 days for math, science faculty, adjuncts, or whomever you choose to invite (including appropriate high school teachers). They will customize the material to suit your needs, or you may select from their course listing . Participants will learn how to use appropriate Texas Instrument calculators and data collection devices to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics or science at the math level you select. They will provide the instruction, the materials, and the use of loaner calculators. They require 15 or more participants for academic year courses (1 - 3 days) and 20 or more for summer courses (3 – 5 days) . The mini-grant application deadline is March 15, 2001 for the summer 2001 courses and there is no deadline for the academic year short courses. - see http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/shortcourse

Mary Ann Hovis, is Chair of the AMATYC Tech Math
Committee and, pending funding, the Principal Investigator of the Technical Mathematics NSF Grant. She writes:

Try this sometime: instead of letting students sit patiently waiting for the rest of class to arrive or for you to get those papers out of your briefcase, start with a ready handout. Train students to pick up a handout on their way into class. Have super-simple review problems to “get their mind in mathematical gear” while the dust settles. Throw in a ringer for discussion. Ten add-subtract signed integer problems (with answers at the bottom of the page) will boost scores on any algebra quiz that may follow.

Three laws of mathematics: Thou shall not divide by zero. Thou shall not cancel terms (in fractions). Thou shall not distribute exponents over terms. Thou shall learn how to count.

The word odyssey is defined as an intellectual quest—what better definition of the purpose of a NEMATYC Conference. Our quest, of course, is the sharing of ideas, experiences and techniques with our colleagues. For several years now, we have struggled with implementing change in our classrooms. The Crossroads standards challenged us to change the way we teach, they urged us to consider what we teach, and they encouraged us to use technology in our courses.

We are looking for presenters who are willing to share their classroom experiences with us. Maybe you decided to make big changes. Maybe you decided to make small changes. Maybe you decided, for good reason, not to change. We would like to hear from all of you.

Send a 25-50 word abstract, which will be included in the program, and any additional supporting information. Also indicate your day preference (Friday afternoon, Saturday or no preference), length of session (50 or 100 minutes) and equipment needed, if any. Include your phone number, college address and e-mail address. One presenter for each session will be given a free registration. If you have any questions, please contact

Called to order at 10:10 at Mass Bay Comm College Present were: Roberta Kieronski, Judy Carter, Bernice Bowdoin, Sue Hoy, John Jacobs, Rick Butterworth, Alec Graham, Elaine Previte, Maureen Woolhouse, and Jack Keating. Roberta Kieronski presiding.

Ted Panitz (Cape Cod) is the chair of the Nominating Committee. By Sep 15 we need 3-5 members, and they need to come up with candidates for vice-president, one at-large member, and treasurer (n.b. Lois Martin has volunteered to continue as treasurer).

Campus representatives might ask folk who couldn’t attend to join NEMATYC. Remember there is a $5 fee. We discussed Future Conferences: Do we need a program coordinator to enlist speakers? A thought was that it will depend on the campus’s needs. Do we need someone to coordinate exhibits? Do we need someone recruiting from the high school faculties? A letter to the presidents of the colleges should be sent about how the conference would be good for professional development and is not costly to convince them to support their faculty who want to go. A general problem: commercial presentations There was an extended discussion about what to do and how to identify what are and are not commercial presentations. The consensus was that a commercial presentation is a presentation by an employee of the company. If it is someone talking about their experiences with a product or an author discussing a topic that may have come up in writing his/her book, these are not examples of a commercial presentation. A suggested fee would be $300/hour for a commercial presentation plus expenses (e.g. technical assistance for a computer lab)

We discussed the 20001 Conference at Middlesex. Maureen Woolhouse and Carol Hay will chair the conference. Bernice Bowdin will chair the exhibits committee.

AMATYC has asked us to present a poster, at AMATYC 2000 in Chicago. Roberta will be in charge. Suggestions of things for the board: history of NEMATYC, newsletters, a tri-cornered hat, photos. Judy will get newsletters.

E-mail communications: send to Ted who will forward it to the campus reps who will forward it to all in their departments.

Report from Jack Keating, AMATYC Regional Vice President. AMATYC – November 9-12 NYSMATYC – April 27 in Lake Placid Our region is responsible for the 2001 conference. Specifically he would like NEMATYC to staff the hospitality suite and help the affiliate in charge. AMATYC 2006 has three possible sites: Boston, Providence, and Cincinnati. Jack is running for re-election next year. Adjourned at 1:50 pm respectfully submitted , Rick Butterworth, secretary