MSU Math Ed at 2024 RUME Conference

Feb 20, 2024

The 26^th annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME) will take place on February 22 – 24, 2024 in Omaha, Nebraska. This conference will be held in hybrid format so individuals will have the option to attend remotely or in person to share their work.

The RUME conference focuses on “collegiate mathematics education to share results of research addressing issues pertinent to the learning and teaching of undergraduate mathematics”, and is structured around the following themes: results of current research, contemporary theoretical perspectives and research paradigms, and innovative methodologies and analytic approaches as they pertain to the study of undergraduate mathematics education.

Many Michigan State University mathematics education faculty and students will be attending and presenting at the RUME conference in Omaha this year. This year’s participants include: Sofia Abreu, Jose Saul Barbosa, Catherine Davis, Anthony Dickson, Brady Tyburski, and Kristen Vroom.

Kristen Vroom photo Kristen Vroom, along with others, will be presenting both a paper and poster. Of her paper, she shared, “To better understand how students’ example and set use might evolve during their conjecturing and proving activity, we engaged two students in guided reinvention of mathematical statements relating sequence properties during an 11-week teaching experiment. We characterized the students’ evolving example/set use in three categories: (1) classifying examples from the initial set of sequences, (2) seeking diversity and using lack of examples from an expanded initial set of sequences, and (3) attending to properties, searching for structure, and building formality with the set of all sequences. We exemplify these categories and then discuss some guidance that could explain the students' example/set use.”

Saul Barbosa photo This paper is titled “The Evolution of two undergraduates’ examples and set use during conjecture and proving” and will take place alongside Saul Barbosa and Abigail Lippert on Friday, February 23^rd from 10:50 -11:20 am CT in Big Blue B. Vroom and Barbosa will be the presenters.

Vroom’s second presentation will be a poster titled “Is it “fast enough?”: Two undergraduate students’ guided rienvention of the comparison test”. She commented, “Series convergence is a key part of the calculus curriculum; however, there is limited research on ways to support students conjecturing about series convergence. We conducted a teaching experiment using Realistic Mathematics Education in which we supported two undergraduate calculus students in reinventing statements about series convergence. We present the students’ reinvention of the comparison test and how it was related to their informal ideas about the sequences n^-1 and n^-2. Our study is an existence proof showing that students can be supported to conjecture tests for series convergence.”

Davis Photo This presentation includes Catherine Davis and will take place on Friday, February 23 from 2:20 – 3:20 pm CT.