Does Interactive = Engaged and Personalized?

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Join experienced professors for an open dialogue on interactive courses in Math. Discover how interspersed assessment, animated graphs, and dynamic visualization can enhance critical thinking skills.

John LaMaster, Senior Instructor of Mathematical Sciences, Purdue University Fort Wayne
Sheila Bradley, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Moberly Area Community College
Kathy Kazem, Professor of Mathematics, College of Southern Nevada

Are Interactive courses the solution to better engaging today’s learners? What makes a course “Interactive”? Join Professors John LaMaster, Sheila Bradley and Kathy Kazemi in an open dialogue on what interactive courses in Calculus and other Math & Statistics courses could look like and what resources/tools it would take to tackle your students struggling with "Where do I go next?"

This webinar we will continue the conversation authors Jason Gregersen, Rachel Vincent-Finley and Herb Kunze had around maximizing the pedagogical benefits of videos in various modes of teaching to engage students and personalize their learning, and dive deeper into the benefits of interspersed assessment and activity (summative vs formative), animated graphs and instruction and dynamic visualization as interactive elements that offer direction and drive critical thinking skills in an interactive course.

What Will Be Covered:

  • Breaking free from static textbook limitations with Animated Algebra and Dynamic Visualization.
  • Maximizing comprehension and retention with pedagogically engaging videos and resources for students.
  • Instructor control and customization: Ability to separate learning and assessment.
  • Time-saving benefits of interactive activities built into lessons, fostering engaging dialogues, metacognition and critical thinking to make connections between abstract concepts and the graph by visualization."

Duration:

About the speakers

image of John LaMaster

John LaMaster, Senior Instructor of Mathematical Sciences, Purdue University Fort Wayne

John LaMaster is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Purdue University Fort Wayne. John's passion is to create a learner-centered, active classroom where students use technology to unlock the power of visualization to mathematize their world and to make sense out of abstract mathematical ideas. When not in the classroom, John enjoys time with his beautiful wife Laura and, when they are home from college, his two amazing sons, Kevin and David. John's hobbies and interests include nature, reading, movies, scrapbooking, guitar, and always learning.
Throughout his career teaching university mathematics, he has been recognized with numerous teaching awards for his innovation and creativity in the classroom and online.

  • He was inducted into Indiana University’s Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) in 1994.
  • In 2004 he was the named the IPFW Friends of the University Teacher of the Year. He was the recipient of the 2016 IPFW Excellence in Online Teaching Award and the 2017 IPFW Leepoxy Teaching Award.
  • Beyond PFW, John received Purdue University West Lafayette’s Digital Education Award for 2017 Innovative Course Design and Use of Technology. Nationally, he captured the 2017 Excellence and Innovation Award from the Online Learning Consortium for tremendous advances in digital learning. Internationally, John was recognized with the 2019 Teachers Teaching with Technology (T3) International Conference Leadership Award for his enthusiastic drive to help teachers apply classroom technology to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics.
  • In recognition of the influence of his teaching effectiveness beyond his own institution, he was presented with the 2019 Distinguished Teaching Award by the Indiana Section of the Mathematical Association of America.
  • He was the recipient of the award for the 2022-23 Featured Faculty for Teaching Excellence for 34 years of innovation and initiatives to enhance active learning in his own classes and those of his peers.
image of Sheila Bradley

Sheila Bradley, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Moberly Area Community College

Sheila Bradleyearned a bachelor’s in mathematics education from the University of Central Missouri in 2001 and a master’s in mathematics education from the University of Montana in 2005. Sheila has been teaching at Moberly Area Community College since 2011 where she has served as the Math Department Coordinator and was instrumental in reworking the Associate of Science degree to ensure our engineering students are prepared to continue their degree at their transfer school. Sheila has converted her Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 courses to be a hybrid format utilizing video to aid in teaching outside of class allowing for active learning to take place in seat. Kathy - Kathy Kazemi is a college professor at College of Southern Nevada. She has been teaching college mathematics since 2004.

image of Kathy Kazemi

Kathy Kazemi, Professor of Mathematics, College of Southern Nevada

Kathy Kazemi has a master’s degree in engineering from George Washington University and a master’s degree in applied mathematics from UNLV. Being a former mechanical engineer, she is passionate about teaching mathematics to solve real life problems. As a leader of a College Algebra corequisite course at CSN, she introduced designing this course with the use of technology. She is a true believer in the use of Technology in all Mathematics courses to improve students' success and retention.