Who's doing this?
Project-Based Instruction in Mathematics for the Liberal Arts at USC Spartanburg
Celia Adair was on the original ad hoc committee that began the development of the project-based version of College Mathematics. She had been principal investigator of a large NSF-funded program that produced innovative courses for middle and high school teachers. Her program, called the Partnership For Excellence, gave us experience with new pedagogies and served as a foundation for Project-Based Instruction in Mathematics for the Liberal Arts. She has taught both the traditional and project-based versions of College Mathematics at USC Spartanburg.
Katie Johnson ( johnsokw@spart5.k12.sc.us) was another member of the original ad hoc committee that began the development of the project-based version of College Mathematics. She developed the original versions of many of the activities - especially the introductory activities - that are found on the web site. Katie is especially good at involving those who "never were any good at math" in interesting activities that hook them into quantitative thinking. She is now a teacher in Spartanburg, SC, District 5 Schools.
Tommy Ordoyne also was on the original ad hoc committee that began the development of the project-based version of College Mathematics. He was especially interested in the activities involving exponential thinking in the math of finance. His Magic of Compound Interest activity is a favorite of students, many of whom have begun payroll savings plans based on the knowledge gained from that one activity. He has taught the project-based version of College Mathematics for four years. He has a great deal of experience teaching with only the graphing calculator.
Gamal Elnagar's sections of College Mathematics are among those with the highest success rates. He has been teaching the project-based version for three years, and has been quite successful in involving students with limited mathematical ability. He has taught several successful time-augmented sections of College Mathematics for those with low placement scores. Students passing from the time-augmented courses are performing on par with regular students in subsequent statistics courses.
Jim Spencer was one of the first faculty members at USCS to incorporate technology into his teaching. With this interest, he found the transition to project-based instruction less traumatic than did some other faculty members. As chair of the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science, he has less time to devote to the program than he did B.C. (Before Chair). His administrative support has been valuable to the program.
Bill White's interest in statistics and in graphing calculator technology has been valuable to the program. He has improved many of the projects found on the web site and has developed rubrics for grading that foster more objectivity without stifling the student's creativity. He is experimenting with an integrated textbook/project approach to College Mathematics. His workshops at professional conferences have used activities derived from ideas spawned in his work in project-based instruction.
Ed Wilde has recently retired from USCS, but remains interested in innovative teaching. One would expect a professor at his career juncture to side-step initiatives like project-based instruction that require a new paradigm and a whole new set of abilities. But he has in a few short years become one of the chief proponents of the pedagogy. Perhaps it's his willingness to take such risks that earned him so many teaching awards including the Governor's Mathematics Professor of the Year for South Carolina.
M.B. Ulmer, now Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at USCS, chaired the original committee that developed the project-based version of College Mathematics in 1994. His work with the Partnership For Excellence gave him experience with writing to learn, constructivist techniques, guided discovery and other innovative pedagogies. His students in an eighth grade statistics class in which he piloted a textbook won the American Statistical Association's National Project Competition. It was the latter course experience that convinced him of the power of project-based instruction. He wrote the booklet that serves to organize teaching with projects in the College Mathematics course at USC Spartanburg.