- About MAA
- Membership
- MAA Publications
- Periodicals
- Blogs
- MAA Book Series
- MAA Press (an imprint of the AMS)
- MAA Notes
- MAA Reviews
- Mathematical Communication
- Information for Libraries
- Author Resources
- Advertise with MAA
- Meetings
- Competitions
- Programs
- Communities
- MAA Sections
- SIGMAA
- MAA Connect
- Students
- MAA Awards
- Awards Booklets
- Writing Awards
- Teaching Awards
- Service Awards
- Research Awards
- Lecture Awards
- Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners
- D. E. Shaw Group AMC 8 Awards & Certificates
- Maryam Mirzakhani AMC 10 A Awards & Certificates
- Two Sigma AMC 10 B Awards & Certificates
- Jane Street AMC 12 A Awards & Certificates
- Akamai AMC 12 B Awards & Certificates
- High School Teachers
- News
You are here
Seaway Section of the MAA
The Seaway Section of the MAA was awarded an EXXON grant of $600 to support a special program for student at its Fall 1996 and Spring 1997 sectional meetings. The following is a report on the program.
Activities
On Saturday, November 9th, during the fall 1996 Seaway Section meeting at the State University of New York at Geneseo, there was a special student session on problem solving. Students wee given copies of current problems from various journals such as Math Horizons, The Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, etc. to work on in an informal, cooperative atmosphere. Though it is not sure how many of solutions were actually submitted, the activity did prompt the formation of a student problem solving group at SUNY Fredonia and some problem solving 'parties' at SUNY Binghamton.
In addition to the problem solving session, three students from St. Bonaventure University's award winning math modeling team presented a talk about their experiences and entry in COMAP's 1996 Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
Following a suggestion given at the fall meeting, the spring meeting at Broome Community college in Binghamton included both a Friday night 'problem solving party' and a Saturday afternoon problem solving session. The rationale was to get the problems in he hands of the students earlier so that they could look at them before he Saturday session.
In addition, Professor Don Gause of the Systems Science Department of the Watson School of SUNY Binghamton presented a talk on heuristic problem solving. Though the talk was presented to everyone, it was particularly valuable to the students present.
Future Plans
The executive committee feels that the student problem solving session is a worthwhile endeavor and should be continued. As with any project, there are problems which must be dealt with. It was hoped that students would want to present solutions to problems from the fall meeting at the spring meeting. This never happened, and in retrospect probably would not happen very much. First was the fact that a number of students did not attend both meetings. Also, by the time of the spring meeting, the submission dates of some of the problems had passed but some problems were still current. It would be unrealistic to expect students to present solutions on these. In the future it would probably be wise to set up some kind of support system to help students once they go back to their respective campuses and encourage more local problem solving groups.
The idea of giving the problems out on Friday seems to be a good one as it does allow students the opportunity to look at the problems ahead of time. However, the Friday night problem solving party was not as well attended as hoped and it seemed that those in att4endance were a bit fatigued from raveling. The idea of sending the problems to the various campuses ahead of time has been suggested and this may also foster the idea of more local problem solving groups. This may be the way to go; foster the problem solving locally and then use the meetings as a get together of various groups.
Submitted by,
Robert Rogers, Student Program Director
