Governmental and educational organizations have pointed out that students coming into the biological sciences require stronger skills in statistics and data modeling that are not usually addressed in typical engineering-based calculus courses. Our work here documents how faculty in biology and mathematics addressed this issue at a large urban…

This paper introduces a course design for a post-Calculus undergraduate course on mathematical modeling for the life sciences. The course includes differential equations, discrete, and cellular automata approaches (among others) to modeling questions in the life sciences, as well as a variety of biological topics. The course focuses on model…

We present a detailed description of a Cryptography and Computer Security course that has been offered at Knox College for the last 15 years. While the course is roughly divided into two sections, Cryptology and Computer Security, our emphasis here is on the Cryptology section. The course puts the cryptologic material into its historical context…

A multi-section coordinated math for social sciences course at a Hispanic-Serving Institution went through a major revision which included the addition of many resources. One resource was educational songs, including a lyric video on the three possible outcomes when solving a system of linear equations. The learning objective associated with this…

We explored the impact a new quantitative biology course for biology majors had on their ability and confidence to utilize hypothesis testing. Students currently in the quantitative biology course and the first cohort of students who took the course (currently seniors) were surveyed on ability and confidence regarding four types of hypothesis…

Students entering health sciences programs may face challenges on their road to successful completion and possible entry to medical school in the area of preparedness in quantitative skills. At our institution, faculty analyzed evidence of these challenges including performance on the ACT Math Test, an in-house math placement test and quantitative…

Although the number of bachelor's degrees in the U.S. awarded to women has gone up, engagement of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continues to be low. This paper presents a project-based learning program, informed by education research best practices, designed to provide research experiences to female students…

This paper outlines a method for teaching topics in undergraduate mathematics or computer science via historical curricular modules. The contents of one module, "Networks and Spanning Trees," are discussed from the original work of Arthur Cayley, Heinz Prüfer, and Otakar Boruvka that motivates the enumeration and application of trees in…

Interdisciplinary undergraduate research experiences often require students to work in teams with other students and researchers from different disciplines, creating a need for development of new skills in interdisciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we describe our unique efforts to mentor participants in developing these skills during our…

Students' learning experiences in an introductory statistics course for non-math majors are compared between two different instructional approaches under controlled conditions. Two sections of the course (n = 52) are taught using a flipped classroom approach and one section (n = 30) is taught using a traditional lecture approach. All sections are…

This article describes the initial development of a qualitative system dynamics model as part of the periodic review of a mathematics course. In an effort to enhance the learning experience of undergraduate computing students (for whom the course is a compulsory part of their curriculum) a small sample of students were interviewed regarding their…

We developed, piloted, and evaluated a successful model for integrating other disciplinary perspectives while learning a specific discipline. Faculty who taught first-year biology and mathematics courses produced examples of how these disciplines complement each other. These faculty presented students with the connecting threads that integrate…