Mini-Courses

24andMe: What mtDNA Can Tell Us About Ourselves and Our World Facilitators: Kelsie Anson, Ph.D., and MƒA Master Teachers Pooja Bhaskar and Megan Wallner

WEDNESDAYS, APR 19, MAY 3, MAY 17 OFFSITE

 SCIENCE

+ PLEASE NOTE: ALL SESSIONS WILL TAKE PLACE FROM 5 - 7 P.M. AT THE DNA LEARNING CENTER IN BROOKLYN.

Did you know that humans have a 24th “chromosome”? Originating from the egg, this DNA plays an essential role in mitochondrial function and can also tell us about ancestry. Join us in this course as we uncover a small part of our ancestry and explore biotech projects for the high school classroom. We’ll begin by extracting, isolating, and amplifying our mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) using PCR. In session two, we’ll use gel electrophoresis to confirm our PCR results and discuss what mtDNA can tell us about population genetics. Finally, in session three, we’ll dive into simple bioinformatics and discuss how to apply this work to our classrooms. This course is best suited for middle and high school life science teachers, but anyone interested in learning more about their own ancestry is welcome. Teachers who complete the course are eligible to borrow and rent classroom kits from the DNA Learning Center.

Dr. Kelsie Anson is an Educator at the DNALC NYC, an operating unit of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s DNA Learning Center. Dr. Anson is formally trained as a biochemist, earning her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Pooja Bhaskar is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice in the Bronx.

Megan Wallner is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn.

Alternative Assessment in the Mathematics Classroom

Facilitator: Márta Barbarics

TUESDAY, FEB 21 THURSDAY, FEB 23 ONLINE

 MATHEMATICS

+ PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A TWO SESSION MINI-COURSE THAT TAKES PLACE DURING MIDWINTER RECESS FROM 9:30 A.M.12:30 P.M.

There are many ways to assess mathematics students, but how do we know which is best? In this highly interactive mini-course, teachers will grapple with questions such as: What does assessment mean to you? What are your assessment goals, and how can you achieve them? What “side effects” do different types of assessment cause? Join us as we share our assessment goals, explore new assessment tools, and consider what is compulsory and possible. We will analyze a variety of assessments, ranging from traditional testing to alternatives, including formative feedback, self-assessment, peer assessment, and more. We will discuss promising practices in small groups and apply them to our classroom contexts. We will also identify strategies to integrate these new assessment tools into our lessons and support our students’ learning. As we will examine examples from elementary to high school mathematics classrooms, all mathematics teachers are welcome. Teachers are encouraged to bring a lesson plan to explore how alternative assessments can fit into their practice.

Márta Barbarics taught mathematics for seven years at Petrik Lajos bilingual high school in Budapest, Hungary. During this time, she investigated the effectiveness of the Pósa Method, a form of guided discovery in mathematics teaching. Currently, she is an assistant professor at the Department of English Language Pedagogy at Eötvös Loránd University. She is also completing her Ph.D. on alternative forms of assessment, such as gamification. She is also the instructor of “Gamification and Playfulness in Teaching Mathematics” and “Directed Research: Discovery Learning in Secondary Schools” classes in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education program.

The Big Ideas of Linear Algebra

Facilitator: Francis Su, Ph.D.

TUESDAYS, MAY 2, MAY 9, MAY 16

ONLINE  MATHEMATICS

While linearity often hides in the world around us, it is, in fact, a fundamental mathematical concept. Linear Algebra helps us to uncover these hidden structures. With the growth of data science, its importance in the early stages of mathematics teaching and learning is increasing. In this course, we will explore an introduction to ten big ideas of linear algebra to help us better understand the subject and learn how to prepare our K-12 mathematics students to appreciate and uncover its applications and beauty. We’ll discuss linearity, practice thinking about it algebraically and geometrically, see how to keep track of linear information in a matrix, learn why matrix multiplication is defined so strangely, and discuss how it corresponds geometrically to a linear transformation. We’ll also unpack the ideas of eigenvectors and eigenvalues, which appear broadly in both classical and quantum mechanics. And finally, we’ll conclude with an introduction to the singular value decomposition, a frequently used tool to find hidden structure in data (e.g., data compression and making Netflix recommendations). All mathematics teachers are welcome. The only prerequisite is a desire to learn why algebra and geometry are so inextricably linked and a willingness to use analogies to stretch one’s ability to visualize more than three dimensions.

Dr. Francis Su is the Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College and a former president of the Mathematical Association of America. In 2013, he received the Haimo Award, a nationwide teaching prize for college mathematics faculty, and in 2018 he won the Halmos-Ford writing award. His work has been featured in Quanta Magazine, Wired, and The New York Times. His book Mathematics for Human Flourishing, winner of the 2021 Euler Book Prize, is an inclusive vision of what mathematics is, who it’s for, and why everyone should learn it.