Demos with Positive Impact

Demos with Positive Impact is an NSF proof-of-concept project to develop a web collection of instructional demonstrations for teaching mathematics. The continued success of this project depends on the community of mathematics educators like you. We need collaborators on three levels: 1) contributors, 2) users, and 3) reviewers. To share your great teaching ideas and to get some great ideas to use in your teaching, visit the Demos with Positive Impact web site at http://www2.gasou.edu/facstaff/lroberts/demos. Contact Dave Hill at Temple University (hill@math.temple.edu) or Lila Roberts (lroberts@gasou.edu) for more information on how to participate.

Bridging the Vector Calculus Gap

Beta Testers Wanted
Tevian Dray & Corinne A. Manogue

We are developing materials in an effort to bridge the gap between the way vector calculus is usually taught by mathematicians and the way it is used by other scientists. We have developed a series of guided group activities emphasizing the geometry of vector calculus, and are in the process of writing an instructors' guide to accompany them. We are looking for a diverse group of beta testers for these materials, beginning in 2003. If you might be interested in trying out our materials, please contact us as soon as possible, preferably before the end of April, 2002.

Further information can be found on our website: http://www.physics.orst.edu/bridge or by sending email to: tevian@math.orst.edu

Introductory Combinatorics

Comparative Beta Testers Wanted

Teaching Introductory Combinatorics by Guided Discovery is a project to develop a set of problems that students work through in groups rather than using a traditional textbook. The goal is to make sure that a large majority of the students learn a large majority of the content of the course. The problems range from motivational problems designed to develop intuition to problems that ask students to draw conclusions and prove them; in effect discovering and proving the main theorems of the course. In the process students work for themselves the exciting examples of combinatorial problems that are often the textbook examples.

We are looking for someone who is willing to teach a section of introductory combinatorics in the usual way with an evaluation component designed by the project evaluator and then teach the course the next time using the experimental notes, again using the evaluation component. The volunteer beta tester will be invited to join the advisory board for the project, which provides a modest honorarium in exchange for a significant impact on the content and approach of the project.

For more information contact K.P.Bogart@dartmouth.edu and for a recent version of the notes, visit www.math.dartmouth.edu/~m28w02.