Welcome Ι (iota) chapter!
January 30, 2009
Augsburg
is now designated as the Minnesota Iota Chapter of the national
mathematics honor society Pi
Mu Epsilon. Augsburg is the
335th chapter
formed since the society’s founding in 1914. Special thanks
are expressed to professor Jody Sorensen, who organized the
department's petition efforts.
Stay tuned for information about the upcoming installation ceremony and induction of charter members.
Welcome back!
January 12, 2009
The mathematics department welcomes back all the students for spring semester! Please check out all the new content on the webpage:
- Updated REU and summer research listings
- Updated colloquium schedule
- Updated undergraduate research pages
- New and recent photos of all of you in action!
Augsburg at the Joint Mathematics Meetings
January 5-8, 2009
Four of Augsburg's mathematics faculty joined roughly 5,500 other mathematicians at the national 2009 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington, DC, January 5-8. Professors Jody Sorensen and Su Dorée judged student research posters. Professor Dorée also presented "I'd rather be approximately right than precisely wrong" about Augsburg's MAT 105 courses in a paper session on College Algebra reform. Professor Matthew Haines presented "An Update of a Professional Development Project focused on Preparing Students for Algebra" about Augburg's MN Department of Education grant providing K-8 grade teachers of charter schools in the metropolitan area with programs to deepen their mathematics pedagogical knowledge. Professor Sridevi Pudipeddi presented research "Traveling Wave Solutions for a Nonlinear Equation which Appears in Fluid Dynamics" during a session on partial differential equations.
Annual holiday party
December 12, 2008
The mathematics department held its annual holiday party with Computer Science. Food was provided by the mathematics and computer science professors. In addition to the karoke provided by Unbounded, students participated in a snowflake and origami contest. Congratulations to Tony Fremling and Ben Robertson for their creative origimi of a deer.The department also recognized the teams that participated in the MAA North Central Section contest.
Photos from the party can be seen in the "Pictures from the Department" slideshow.
Student Research Presentations
December 3, 2008
Math majors Andrew Bergeson and Al Garver presented their undergraduate research results for math colloquium. Andrew presented on his work modeling forest carbon uptake, which was supported by the Augsburg Physics NASA Space Grant. Al presented on his econometric resreach. Andy worked with Professor John Zobitz and Al worked with Professor Stella K. Hofrenning (Economics).
Earlier in the semester Ashley Gruhlke presented her work on contextual algebra, and Mike Janas presented his summer REU research on inverse problems. Ashley worked with Professor Su Dorée and was funded by URGO. Mike participated in the Rose Hulman Summer REU program.
Here are pictures from the
Presentation: 
North Central Section Team Contest
November 15, 2008
Augsburg College participated in the MAA North Central Section Team contest. Three teams of students met on Saturday morning, sequestered themselves for three hours to solve mathematics problems. 74 teams at colleges across the region all participated in the contest.
The teams that
participated are:
- BAM!: Ashley Gruhlke, Mike Janas, Brietta Schluender
- The Singleton Set: Al Garver, John Singleton
- The Imperial Stormtroopers: Joel Kociemba, Brian Love, Robert Spalding
Thanks to Professors Belík and Zobitz for helping prepare the students for the contest.
Here is a picture of the teams, with their certificates:
Alumni Update
October 30, 2008
Cory Nathe, MAT/CSC double major from 2007 writes: "I am really liking my job here in Seattle at the cancer research center. I am actually working with a division of the center called SCHARP (Statistical Center for HIV/AIDS Research and Prevention). I know HIV/AIDS research at a Cancer research center seems a little strange. My title is "study data manager and scientific programmer". I do a lot of computer programming and web page work to support collaboration between research labs from around the world and our statisticians (so don't worry I am doing some math from time to time). All in all, it keeps me very busy. "
New "Opportunities" posted
October 2, 2008
We've added a new page for students to help look for summer internships, employment, and research opportunities. This page can be found here. Enjoy!
T-Shirts for Sale!
October 2, 2008
Students, alumni,
and friends of the math
department -
purchase
your official Augsburg math department tshirt today. T-shirts have the
cartoon shown here. Color is cobalt blue, sizes S-XXL, for $12. See
Jody in SCI 137E or contact
sorensj1@augsburg.edu
if you're interested (we can ship for a small fee).
Alumni Update
September 9, 2008
Jennifer Geis, 2006 Augsburg
Mathematics major, completed
her masters in statistics at Northern Illinois University this past
spring and is currently in the Biostat Ph.D. program at Florida
State University. In addition to the Biostats program,
Florida State has many MS and Ph.D. students specializing in
mathematics and
financial mathematics.
Jennifer welcomes questions from prospective
graduate school students. She can be contacted at
jgeis@stat.fsu.edu.
Welcome back!
September 3, 2008
The math department welcomes
all students back to campus for
another year!
There are several new faces in the department this year. Joining us are
Pavel Belik and
Sridevi Pudipeddi. We would also like to welcome Rich Flint, who has
been an instructor for the
Math department since 1999, but is now teaching several sections for
day students. Tracy Bibelnieks and Ken Kaminsky are on
sabbatical for the year.
Please
stop by to introduce yourself to these new faculty!
August 1, 2008
Augsburg College was
recently selected
as a
partner in the Minnesota Mathematics and Science Teacher Academy
initiative. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, the
Academy is a result of Governor Pawlenty's efforts to improve teacher
effectiveness particularly in the areas of math and science.
The Academy is comprised of nine regional teacher centers, each including at least one K-12 school district or education service cooperative and one higher education institution. Augsburg is partnering with Resource Training & Solutions in St. Cloud to provide training for 19 districts in Region 7. Approximately 140 teachers will participate in the program, which begins with a summer institute to be held August 11-15, 2008 at Apollo High School in St. Cloud.
Rebecca Koelln '76 and '91 MAL is the director of school improvement services at Resource Training & Solutions. She is excited to be working with Augsburg math professors Tracy Bibelnieks and Matt Haines as well as Education professor Linda Stevens to conduct the training for the St. Cloud area. Koelln sees the program as a way for teachers to expand their content knowledge and to refine pedagogical approaches that promote student engagement. She also hopes students will become interested in studying math and the sciences after high school.
The initial goal of the program is to prepare teachers to implement new math and science standards, which will be used beginning with the class of 2015. These standards involve introducing algebra into elementary school lessons. The centers provide training and technical assistance to help teachers implement Minnesota's content standards, master the use of multiple instructional approaches, and improve skills to diagnose student learning needs using assessment of student performance.
Throughout the year, training will provide a continued focus on algebraic thinking with teachers involved in ongoing professional learning communities, full-day workshops, and implementation of new instructional practice. All of the activities are geared toward providing resources for teachers as they prepare their students for taking algebra in the eighth grade.
The topic for the math in-service is algebraic thinking, a recent addition in the elementary and middle school math curriculum. Leading this program gives the Augsburg faculty an opportunity to learn more about recent research on the development of children's algebraic thinking. Stevens said, "We can then use this information in our mathematics content and methods courses for Augsburg's students to prepare them for their future as teachers."
Bibelnieks said, "One of the powerful pieces of the Academy is the opportunity for 'algebra' to become a term that no longer strikes fear into the heart of some parents and many students." She added that the elementary mathematics curriculum includes algebraic thinking, but teachers and students don't often recognize the skills as related to what they experience in middle school or high school as algebra. "Identifying and making algebraic thinking explicit to students can help them see the connections to what they are doing in the lower and upper primary grades and what they will do later," she said.
"I'm not sure that you would see a significant difference if you sat in on a math class before and after the academy," Bibelnieks added. "The mathematics content isn't going to change. The language of the instruction, however, will be a bit different. Stevens added, "Our intent is to help the teachers recognize that deep understanding occurs when the learners are actively engaged. We will be modeling and discussion effective lesson plan structures that encourage students to develop mathematical thinking and will focus on a classroom environment that encourages students to problem solve and discuss their thinking process."
One anticipated outcome from the learning communities is continued and sustained professional development for teachers within a school or a district. During the school year teachers will be encouraged to form teams as they prepare and study their teaching. Stevens said, "United States teachers have limited time to collaborate with others about their teaching. The principals of the teachers attending this course have committed time during the school day for the teachers to discuss the instruction and the students' understanding.
August 1, 2008
Professors Suzanne Doree Suzanne Dorée and John Zobitz attended the Mathematica Associate of America Mathfest in Madison, Wisconsin. Professor Dorée co-chaired with Nancy Ann Neudauer from Pacific University the contributed paper session titled "Fascinating Examples from Combinatorics, Discrete Mathematics, and Graph Theory". Professor Zobitz presented "Integrating Service Learning Projects in a Differential Equations Course" in the contributed paper session "Teaching Mathematics and Statistics through Current Civic Issues". A great time was had by all.
May 2, 2008
Augsburg College held its
annual commencement ceremony for day
college students. Congratulations
to all our graduates on their success!
We wish you the best of luck and please keep in touch!
April 16, 2008
Faculty member John Zobitz spoke at Bethany Lutheran College's annual science symposium. John's talk, titled "Math is in the air," illustrated how mathematics continually intersects with our daily lives. In the talk John described how mathematics can be used to address environmental issues such as monitoring urban air quality and carbon uptake of forests.
March 12, 2008
The
department and the student club Unbounded celebrated the marvelous
number π =3.1415927
.... in their (approximation
of)
π Day. During the entire day the campus was invited to
enjoy a
variety of fresh baked pies and lemonade. The pies were so
good,
one participant called them "transcendental!" In addition
t-shirts were available for sale. Many
thanks to the Unbounded club for their hard work making this event
successful!
