There is a need for public health undergraduates to acquire skills in data collection, statistical programming, and infectious diseases modeling. Public health officials and accreditation bodies underline the importance of a cumulative, "real-world" experience as part of a student's education. The Watermelon Meow Meow (WMM) outbreak is a…

Faculty professional development is an important lever for change in supporting instructors to adopt research-based instructional strategies that engage students intellectually, foster learning-supportive attitudes and habits of mind, and strengthen their persistence in mathematics. Yet the literature contains few well-rationalized models for…

The authors describe their approach to teaching a course on finite fields and combinatorial applications, including block designs and error-correcting codes, using a hybrid of lectures and active learning. Under the discussed classroom model, there are two lecture days and two discovery-based discussion days each week. Discussions center around…

This paper describes a course designed to introduce students to mathematical thinking and a variety of lower level mathematics topics using baseball while satisfying the goals of quantitative reasoning. We give suggestions for sources, topics, techniques, and examples so any mathematics teacher can design such a course to fit their needs. The…

Mathematics education faculty working in mathematics departments are commonly involved in teaching undergraduate mathematics courses, teaching and supervising postgraduate students of mathematics education, and developing mathematics teachers (pre-service and/or in-service). This paper proposes a new elective course that can be taken by either…

We explored the impact a new quantitative biology course for biology majors had on their ability and confidence to utilize hypothesis testing. Students currently in the quantitative biology course and the first cohort of students who took the course (currently seniors) were surveyed on ability and confidence regarding four types of hypothesis…

Cornell University has long offered a Calculus for Life Sciences course. In this case study, we report on how a team of pure mathematicians has modernized both the content and teaching methods of this course. The content went from a standard calculus course with few genuine applications in the life sciences to a course focusing on dynamical…

We describe the design and implementation of lessons in undergraduate abstract algebra that integrate applications to teaching high school mathematics. Each lesson consists of a pre-activity, class activity, homework set, assessment questions and detailed instructor notes. The included applications intend to bridge advanced mathematics concepts to…

This paper introduces lessons designed to incorporate applications to teaching high school mathematics in an undergraduate Discrete Mathematics course. Because many prospective high school teachers do not take courses that are specifically designed for teachers, providing materials aimed at teacher preparation that can be easily integrated into…

Through a multi-year, national calculus study, researchers have recently identified seven characteristics of successful college calculus programs. We identified these seven characteristics by visiting five doctoral-granting mathematics departments with successful calculus programs and uncovering the common traits among them. These seven traits…

In this case study, we use organizational development and change theory to look at how the University of Oklahoma (OU) has attended to the mathematical pathway leading to STEM fields. Using multiple sources of data, we are able to create an informative narrative that provides the particular context of the situation and in-depth picture of the…

In this paper, we describe the evolution of calculus instruction at a mid-sized, career-oriented, comprehensive public university. Changes in practice, that began with a single faculty member implementing technology as a tool for student inquiry, have spread to other department faculty via support from an internal grant, workshops, and the use of…

In 2011, Sonoma State University developed a STEM first-year experience (supported by NSF STEP grant 1068445) that combines general education requirements in mathematics, biology, and critical thinking. The mathematics content includes topics from precalculus and elementary statistics, with a particular focus on using functions and modeling with…

This quasi-experimental, pre-post study with non-equivalent comparison groups explores the potential for resequencing of course content to affect positive change in an undergraduate, introductory statistics course at a mid-sized, flagship university that is located in a southern state. Quantitative analyses suggest that the implementation of…

Open-ended questions that can be solved using different strategies help students learn and integrate content, and provide teachers with greater insights into students' unique capabilities and levels of understanding. This article provides a problem that was modified to allow for multiple approaches. Students tended to employ high-powered, complex,…