Panelists:  David Clark, SUNY New Paltz
                Brian Katz, Augustana College
                E. Lee May, Salisbury College
                Carol Schumacher, Kenyon College

In the fall term of 2010, the Mathematical Association of America undertook a large-scale survey of instruction of mainstream Calculus I in two- and four-year undergraduate programs. The surveys of course coordinators, instructors, and students involved 168 colleges and universities, 660 instructors representing almost 900 Calculus I classes, and over 34,000 students, 12,000 of whom answered the initial student survey. This will be a preliminary report of some of the findings.

I will share some snap shots of student working at the board, some student write-ups, and the notes that I used for the course.  These notes and materials were all developed in part through the small grant I received through the Academy for Inquiry Based Learning (AIBL).  I am looking for anyone who would like to use these notes in their own classrooms and give me additional feedback.  One goal I have in mind is to pose these as vetted notes on the Journal of Inquiry-Based Learning in Mathematics. .

Over the past two semesters, we have taught Discrete Math (which serves our computer science  majors and strong elementary education students, and functions as our department’s transition-to-upper-level-mathematics course) a combined total of three times using a modified Moore Method.  The students spent approximately half of each 100-minute period presenting problems at the board, and the other half working in groups on the notes and problems within (written by us).  We used different grading models but the same notes and general set-up.  We will discuss anecdotally the   outcomes and our experiences with the project, as well as future directions.

A math circle is an environment where the participants discover mathematics through guided problem solving and investigation.  This mathematical theme for this session is symmetry, in several forms, and the venue is a series of finite nim-like games.  Our initial investigations are at the elementary school level, but the final problems lead to very deep mathematics.