Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

What is a flipped classroom? Many people may ask themselves this question if they are unfamiliar with this term. It’s definitely not a classroom with all the furniture flipped around and turned upside down. This week in my Math 371 class, Technology for STEM Educators, we discussed the idea of a flipped classroom and its benefits and drawbacks. A flipped classroom is a teaching method that reverses the typical classroom mold. In a flipped classroom, students watch lecture videos and take notes at home, and during class time students work together to apply the material, ask questions, and get immediate feedback from the teacher. Some overall benefits are students can learn at their own pace, students can pause and rewatch the lecture, and it’s a great alternative for when students are absent. Another big advantage, especially in the math classroom, is that parents have access to lecture videos to help their children based on that. Some drawbacks are that students have to be independ...

Are you scared to continue being a math major? This is a question I was recently asked by one of my professors as an end-of-semester reflection. On the one hand, absolutely. I knew the material after that point was only going to exponentially get harder. On the other hand, I was (and am) so excited to continue learning more about math, despite the challenges that I know are ahead of me. Why should I be scared? There is this perception that math is this difficult subject that only the smartest students are going to succeed in. It’s nothing more than a subject schools force them to learn to progress in school and graduate. It’s something to be feared. There is some truth to this. Math is an increasingly difficult subject that some students are going to excel in more easily than others, just like every other subject taught in school. And schools do require students to take it, but for many beneficial reasons such as the real-world applications of math and the problem-solving skills that m...

Last week, our Math 371 class, Technology for STEM Educators, examined the appropriate use of technology in teaching.  But what does that mean? Don’t use technology just for the sake of using technology. An example that I gave of that is using an iPad to roll a pair of dice when you could just have students roll physical dice. There are definitely advantages to using technology for this, as have 30 students rolling dice in your classroom would be noisy. But does the technology enhance the experience, and I would say that it doesn’t. Technology should help students with their understanding of the material. Now when we say technology, do we mean it has to be electronic? I would argue that manipulatives could be considered technology. In this case, something like algebra tiles can help students understand factoring better so that would be an example of an appropriate use of technology.  If you don’t have a set of algebra tiles for your classroom, you can use them online at https:...