Many first and second-year college students do not get to experience math research; it is an opportunity that is reserved for mathematics majors in their third or fourth years of college, and sometimes only during highly selective summer programs. There is a (mis)understanding that calculus is necessary to engage in original mathematics research, but it just isn’t true!
This spring, I will be teaching an undergraduate research course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in collaboration with a colleague at Southeast Community College (SCC). This course will focus on mathematical modeling and data analytics for students who have not taken Calculus but still want to engage in authentic research projects related to health, housing, education, and business. We plan to incorporate data analytics tools and topics that will be relevant to many students and their future careers.
One goal of our course is to strengthen the pathway between our two institutions. By offering our courses at the same time, students will work across campuses in small research groups comprised of students from both institutions. Through their collaboration, students will develop data literacy, creativity, technology fluency, problem solving, and professional presentation skills. To support our partnership, we applied for and were awarded a grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM), which we learned about at the AMATYC conference.
The American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) holds an annual conference where folks who are interested in supporting the mathematics education of students at associate’s degree-granting institutions hear from keynote speakers and participate in themed sessions. Attending the 2023 AMATYC conference was pivotal to establishing the partnership between UNL and SCC and learning how to draw on our personal and institutional strengths to co-develop a research course. Through our work with the CURM leadership, we’ve focused on equitable teaching practices in our course; we hope to especially support students who are first generation college students or are members of historically marginalized populations.
If you’re interested in attending the AMATYC Conference, you can register and learn more about it here.
If you’d like to apply for a CURM grant to support a partnership for a mathematics research course, you can go here.