My third year at ACU was far and away the most productive and one of the most rewarding of the five years I have spent at the university. Over the course of the year, I was able to refine my MATH 361 course, further my interests in mobile learning research, and teach MATH 227, Discrete Mathematics, for the first time. I was also able to sit on the UGEC at a very important time in the school’s history which gave me a more satisfying connection to the university as a whole.

Let’s start by looking over my stated teaching goals for the semester:

• I will develop curriculum, course content, etc… for MATH 227, Discrete Mathematics.  This is my first experience teaching this very important majors course.
• I will integrate more mobile content into lectures for students in MATH 130, MATH 120.
• I will promote more mentoring in my relationships with students.

Let me interject some thoughts as they relate to each of my goals for this year.

Teaching Discrete Mathematics

Discrete mathematics was a course I always had mixed emotions about teaching.  On the one hand, the course is central to our majors’ development of their mathematical writing skills and would give me a natural way of sharing my enthusiasm for LaTeX with my students.  But, I knew I was taking over the course that Dr. Bo Green, recently retired, had made a staple in the department.  I was committed to maintaining the rigor and academic excellence he had made part of the course for so long.

By the end of the year I was able to create a full course outline with dates for projects and assignments, a comprehensive set of lecture notes with supporting lecture slides, various homework sets, and 5 LaTeX writing assignments to introduce my students to using LaTeX to typeset mathematical documents.  All of these assignments were available on the ACU course blog system, which was newly available.

The first time I taught the course I was uncomfortable with the rigor of the logic section of the course, so in the spring I required a supplementary text entitled, “How to Prove It” which complemented the required text by providing the logical foundations for proof of topics throughout the course.  This was a good change and I felt my students’ analytical writing skills and argumentation skills improved as a result.

This semester, Fall 2010, marks the third consecutive semester I will have had the opportunity to teach the course, and every semester, including the current one, I have tweaked the content to allow for a more broad overview of topics in the course.  This was in direct response to talking with students and gathering feedback from colleagues. On the whole, the course is in a really good place now, and I’ll be disappointed when I don’t get to teach it again in the spring.

Integrating Mobile Content

From this point on, I could mark the goal of integrating more mobile content as an unstated goal every semester, but the 2009-2010 school year marked the beginning of this commitment to delivering high quality mobile content for my students.  I was able to produce around 20 screen casts between MATH 120, MATH 227, and MATH 361 on topics ranging from calculating annuity payments to conducting a change of parameters study and bifurcation analysis.

I have come to realize that the medium under which this generation learns best is video and media content.  The “YouTube Generation” as I have come to call them can learn quickly and efficiently when guided by a lecture they can pause in a format they can take anywhere.  I was able to develop some flash based calculator tutorials and iPhone equivalent podcasts for students in MATH 120.  All content I have created and continue to create I freely share with my colleagues.

I was able to work with the new Digital Media center and Dr. Kyle Dickson in the spring semester to develop a screencasting project for MATH 361.  This project required students to create a series of screencasts that explored the development of a particular type of problem over the course of the semester.  I posted the students’ work on the course blog and had the other students critique and assess the other students’ work.  To my surprise and delight the students’ work got significantly better over the course of the semester as each group incorporated the best aspects of previous presentations and tried to one up their classmates.  All friendly of course, this project brought out the best sides of my students and is a great example of the direction I want to take my courses in the future.

Altogether, the effect of producing more mobile content for my courses made me more interested in mobile learning research and that research in turn made me push harder to create more and better content.  This is the type of cyclical relationship that I feel scholarship and teaching should share.  To this date, I have created over 80 separate mobile podcasts, am in the process of developing a website that my colleagues can access which houses these resources, and launched a case study on the effects of mobile learning as it relates to computing platforms.  These things are a direct result of the steps taken in this year.

Student Mentoring

This is another goal you could file under the unwritten goals for every semester heading, but this year marked the first year that I was very intentional about trying to build relationships with my students.  I cooked food and brought that food into my majors’ courses.  I came up on weekends to sit with groups of students at study sessions, held nighttime review sessions for my MATH 120 and 130 courses, and discussed the possibility of undergraduate research with several students, though I’ve gotten no firm commitments.

Over the course of the year, I assigned several projects in MATH 361 and MATH 227 that required use of the departmental computer labs to complete.  On several occasions, outside of office hours, I sat with students explaining the intricacies of a Maple code, or the syntax of a LaTeX command.  I think I have positioned myself as a principle resource in the department for students wanting to use LaTeX, Maple, or other technology based resources.  I often have former students ask for help in working up a presentation in their other classes.

I acknowledge that I still have a long way to go in this regard and I am excited about the potential for undergraduate research stemming from the announcement of a special topics course in Partial Differential Equations that will be offered in Spring 2011.  This course and MATH 361 should provide ample opportunity to work with students across both courses to produce some exceptional undergraduate work.

Scholarship

My level of, and commitment to scholarship increased dramatically in the 2009-2010 school year.  I was invited to speak at an international conference on the use of the iPhone in college mathematics.  This invitation was prompted by the tremendous response around the nation to an article published in the MAA Focus, a nationally circulated and heavily read magazine/journal for members of the Mathematical Association of America.

I was able to complete my second publication further extending my dissertation research.  I was also able to publish in areas related to some of the unique topics I teach in MATH 361 and my use of technology across the curriculum.

The attention my work in mobile learning has garnered allowed me to make a valuable contact in higher education at Texas Instruments who this past summer we were able to bring to ACU on multiple occasions to have conversations about many things including: potential for ACU’s partnership with TI, TI’s interest in my fall semester case study, the future of the calculator in the mobile market, monetizing mobile learning products, etc…  My work in this area has brought the department and university recognition and a world renowned corporation into collaborative talks.

I feel this is only the starting point however, as I now have the momentum and resources to accomplish even more moving forward.  I am appreciative of all the support I have had from colleagues in the department and the Adam’s Center for Teaching and Learning in making these opportunities possible.

Service

This year, I was able to pick up a new departmental responsibility as library liaison.  I also spearheaded a review of MATH 227, MATH 325, and MATH 361 to write course competencies and integrate a common assessment across all sections.  I was able to serve my profession by refereeing another journal article and sitting on an emerging technologies panel at an international conference.  Additionally, I was asked to sit on a course blogs and mobile learning panel at the Adams Center.

While all of the above service activities have contributed to a greater appreciation and understanding of my profession, I can no doubt say that my appointment to the University General Education Council has had a very far reaching impact on my connection to the university.  While sitting on the council I have gotten a glimpse of the inner workings of the university, had a hand in deciding the direction of our new core curriculum, and built relationships beyond my own department.  These are all things that I hold very dear, and am looking forward to another year of service in 2010-2011 as we tackle questions surrounding the last two courses of core and capstone requirements.

Overview

I consider this my most successful year to date, but in many ways the first two years were necessary growing pains to get me to this point.  I feel confident in my ability to be an impactful professional on this campus and in the mathematical community.  I feel I have a better grasp on what my innate teaching style and expectations for my students are.  I have a commitment to service and stronger appreciation for the inner workings of the university than I have had before.