The UIUC PT3 Ed Grid Team

Office for Mathematics, Science,and Technology Education

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignhttp://www.mste.uiuc.edu

The UIUC Ed Grid Team Project is under the direction of MSTE

With the support from the following campus units:

MSTE Websitehttp://www.mste.uiuc.edu/

The nexus for MSTE activities is its website. There, one can find information about MSTE activities and internet resources that promote exploration, modeling, and visualization in mathematics and science. Currently, the site receives over one million hits per month.

Principal Investigators: Kenneth J. Travers Delwyn L. Harnisch

Faculty in Mathematics Education: Bridget A. Arvold Rochelle Gutiérrez Timothy M. Hendrix

Faculty in Science Education: Fouad Abd-El-Khalick David E. Brown

The MSTE Ed Grid Team

An Intentional Recursive Pattern in Mathematics and Science Pre-Service

Teacher EducationImmersion

(e.g., in content-based activities that promote

modeling and visualization) Reflection

(of how content knowledge and understanding influence pedagogical understanding)

Synthesis

(of theory and practice as a novice teacher exiting the

teacher education program)

Web-based java applets: Project Interactivate, Shodor Education Foundation,

http://www.shodor.org National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, Utah State

University, http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/ Office for MSTE, UIUC, home-grown java applets

Software packages for visualization and analysis: Mathematica and other CAS Geometer’s Sketchpad Logger Pro and Vernier data collection probes

Visualization Tools

Java Applets for Visualizing MathematicsOne resource provided by the MSTE website are java applets

that prompt exploration of various mathematics concepts. These applets can be found at:http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/java/

Screenshots of Other Sample Java Applets

Web-based java applets: Project Interactivate, Shodor Education Foundation,

http://www.shodor.org National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, Utah State

University, http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/ Office for MSTE, UIUC, home-grown java applets

Software packages for visualization and analysis: Mathematica and other CAS

Geometer’s Sketchpad Logger Pro and Vernier data collection probes

Visualization Tools

Using Geometer’s Sketchpad to model conic sections after folding wax paper:

Web-based java applets: Project Interactivate, Shodor Education Foundation,

http://www.shodor.org National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, Utah State

University, http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/ Office for MSTE, UIUC, home-grown java applets

Software packages for visualization and analysis: Mathematica and other CAS Geometer’s Sketchpad

Logger Pro and Vernier data collection probes

Visualization Tools

Math and science pre-service teachers working together to collect exercise heart rate data and analyze the data graphically on the computer

The following graphs were created using a motion detector.

Collaboration with local high schools:

• Pre-service teachers engage in the same mathematics activities as the high school students

• We “unpack” these experiences as teachers and then watch the high school students doing the same activity via polycom or video

• In some cases, we create/modify activities for the high school students to try

“The use of the motion detector helps students learn about functions because they can see the graphs and data develop at the same time as they make the graph…”

“I became the function…” “It helps students to visualize the concept of a function because ‘you can’t go

back in time’…”

“Meta-lessons”