This quantitative study investigated the academic outcomes of high school students from one community college district in Illinois who took a high school transitional math course designed to give them direct placement into a college-level math course. The goal of successful completion of a transitional math course is to allow students direct…

As COVID-19 continues to impact various business sectors, university administrators have steadily pushed for all academic units to resume on campus operations and activities; conversely, faculty and students have expressed increased interest in continuing online teaching/learning. We aim to mitigate this "tug-of-war" between…

Harvesting models based on ordinary differential equations are commonly used in the fishery industry and wildlife management to model the evolution of a population depleted by harvest mortality. We present a project consisting of a series of scenarios based on fishery harvesting models to teach the application of theoretical concepts learned in a…

We describe a case study of a problem-solving section, using the "Harkness" discussion method, of an honors multivariable calculus course. Students in the problem-solving section had equivalent outcomes on exams, reported higher ratings in self-assessments of skills, and took more math classes in the following year, compared with…

This paper describes the development, results, and future directions of the mathematics component of the EMERGE Summer Program at Northeastern Illinois University. Initiated summer 2014, EMERGE offered English and mathematics sessions for incoming freshmen. The mathematics session aimed to strengthen participants' mathematical foundations,…

Albrecht Dürer is well known as a Renaissance artist, but his 1525 work, the "Underweysung der Messung," or "Manual on Measurement," also contains a significant amount of mathematics. This article outlines four projects inspired by parts of this work, with additional material coming from Staigmüller's 1891 "Dürer als…

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a postbaccalaureate comprehensive university in the Midwest. In 2005, SIUE embarked on a challenging journey of general education reform. A review of the current general education program revealed that it is possible for a student to graduate from SIUE without taking a quantitative course. Hence,…

In the context of a department of applied mathematics, a program assessment was conducted to assess the departmental goal of enabling undergraduate students to recognize, appreciate, and apply the power of computational tools in solving mathematical problems that cannot be solved by hand, or would require extensive and tedious hand computation. A…

I present a unit on voting theory and social choice taught as the beginning of a liberal arts mathematics course for undergraduates. In this unit, students voted on the final grade calculation formula and topics to cover during the semester and then analyzed the results using various voting systems. I believe that by allowing my students to…

We measured student performance on the concept of limit by promoting reflection through four agents of change: instructor, peer, curriculum and individual. It is based on Piaget's four constructs of reflective abstraction: interiorization, coordination, encapsulation, and generalization, and includes the notion of reversal, as refined into a…

Data from the ALEKS-based placement program at the University of Illinois is presented visually in several ways. The placement exam (an ALEKS assessment) contains precise item-specific information and the data show many interesting properties of the student populations of the placement courses, which include Precalculus, Calculus, and Business…

In this article, the author suggests a cross-curricular idea that can link with PE, dance, music and history. Teacher David Schmitz, a maths teacher in Illinois who was also a square dance caller, had developed a maths course that used the standard square dance syllabus to teach mathematical principles. He presents an intensive, two-week course…

The common understanding within the mathematics community is that the role of the college algebra course is to prepare students for calculus. Though exceptions are emerging, the curriculum of most college algebra courses and the content of most textbooks on the market both reflect that assumption. This article calls that assumption into question…

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that influence students' performance in the intermediate algebra classes at the college by analyzing parameters such as test scores, grades, attitude towards mathematics, time lapse between subsequent courses, placement, and teaching practices. This study will investigate the correlation of several…

Research on student achievement within the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP) and Core-Plus Mathematics Project (CPMP) at the secondary level is beginning to accumulate, however, much less is known about how prepared these students are for post-secondary education. Therefore this study involving students within one tracked…