Math ed committee-I am on a listserve for discussion of post-calculus
mathematics and this came across a little while ago.  Given our discussion
this week about the secondary ed requirements in math, I thought you milght
be interested.  Jerry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
>Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 08:38:13 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [log in to unmask] (David Meel)
>Subject: [MATHEDU] Capstone Courses
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>Hello!
>
>I do not particularly want to get the listserv off subject of the covert
>curriculum but I was wondering if anyone would like an opportunity to
>address a situation that my particular university is facing.
>
>I am a second-year untenured faculty member at Bowling Green State
>University sitting in on a potentially volitile discussion and thought I
>could garner some help from people that are more established in the field
>of undergraduate Math Ed.  We, at Bowling Green State University, are
>reexamining our secondary math ed training program and it is on the table
>to remove the senior level requirement of a proof-based course of either a
>classical analysis course (revisitation of calculus material leading to the
>Fundemental Thm of Calculus) or Foundations course (logic, set theory,
>cardinality, axiomatic method, etc.).  In its stead, it has been proposed
>to have a capstone experience which takes a look at the highschool
>curriculum from an advanced standpoint as their final mathematics course at
>BGSU.  The reasons proposed for this is that students do not see the
>purpose of the content and techniques of the proof-based courses in
>relationship to the highschool teaching in which they are about to embark,
>they dread the course thereby making their last math experience a "bad
>one", and the passage rates in those courses are "low".
>
>I have a host of questions.  First off, has anyone on the listserv had to
>deal with matters such as this?  If you have, what was the resolution of
>the situation?  Do you feel the proposed capstone course or some different
>type of capstone experience would better serve these students?  If you do
>have a capstone course in place, what types of experiences/ projects do you
>have students complete?
>
>I'd really appreciate responses (especially by Friday since we are having a
>undergraduate committee meeting to discuss these issues) but to not clutter
>up the listserv you could send them directly to me at [log in to unmask]
>
>Thanks!!
>
>David Meel
>
>
>David E. Meel, Ed.D.
>Department of Mathematics and Statistics
>Bowling Green State University
>Bowling Green, OH 43403
>(419) 372-8574 [Office]
>(419) 372-6092 [Fax]
>
>
>
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