Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

We have all experienced the struggle in math class, whether it was you struggling or seeing someone else in the class struggling. There’s just too little time in class to learn all the material for the day and to also practice it too. Then to add to that stress, having the homework and not knowing how to do it after you get home for the day. Many parents even struggle when helping their child with their math homework because it's been years since they've done it. This is where the idea of flipped learning comes into play. The idea where you spend around 15 minutes outside of class learning new material then going to class the next day to fortify and build upon that knowledge through activities in class. Flipped learning is a good way for teachers to know who is struggling and have the time to help them in class while the students work on activities or worksheets. The outside learning portion should only really need to be around 15 minutes because of the attention spans of the...

As we start this semester of Math 371, we are just beginning to learn about the vast list of technological resources out there for teachers. As we continue through the semester, we will master how to use technology in our classrooms to improve students learning, but as teachers, we need to ensure the technology we are implementing into our classrooms isn’t harming our students. While learning about new technology resources, Dr. Vestal posed a question along the lines of “Do you think technology grants more access to students?” My initial response to this question was “Yes, it definitely does.” I went on to talk about how technology allows students to do so many new things that students in the past weren’t able to do. For example, over the last few years students learned how to do school over Zoom, something that our parents never would have dreamt of being able to do. Students now can use online math manipulatives, graph equations on Desmos, watch videos over subjects they are confused...

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last month, you have likely heard of ChatGPT and the concerns that teachers have due to this software. I understand these concerns for teachers who assign writing projects, which I do, but can a student use ChatGPT to write a research paper? Since we are getting ready to discuss copyright in the Math 371 class, I wondered if ChatGPT was smart enough to not use copyrighted material. I decided to ask an SDState librarian who is the resident expert on copyright, Elizabeth Fox. Another concern I had is whether ChatGPT would produce a bibliography. Fox asked it “I need 5 peer-reviewed articles on artificial intelligence.” ChatGPT produced a list of 5 articles. It gave her a list, but the links to the articles didn’t work and when she searched databases for these articles, the articles did not exist. Therefore, I am not convinced that ChatGPT could write a good research paper with citations and a bibliography. Fox said that she thinks that C...