This year's conference will focus on transitions from secondary to post-secondary mathematics classrooms. What are the issues?
People teaching first year courses at universities and colleges feel that students are not prepared for the experience. Parents are looking for tutors for their children, concerned about thier chances at passing UBC (SFU, UVic, ...) calculus course. Does the new curriculum prepare students for the university/college experience? Or, is it that the high school curricula have been changing faster than the university calculus courses, and the students arrive not knowing enough about algebra to satisfy university expectations? Are these expectations realistic?
Do we need to teach Algebra? What Algebra? For Whom?
These are just some of the questions this year's Changing the Culture conference will attempt to answer.
The topic will be explored first in our morning plenary: "Algebra - The Language of Mathematics", by Bernice Kastner, Towson University, Maryland and the Rochester Institute of Technology, and later in the panel discussion and small group discussions.
In the afternoon, Rina Zazkis and Peter Liljedahl, SFU, will speak on: "Hollywood Perceptions of Mathematics: Cultural Truth or Mathematical Fiction?".
The conference is supported by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.
More information will appear soon at the conference website, http://www.pims.math.ca/ctc/,
or email Malgorzata Dubiel, dubiel@cs.sfu.ca
Malgorzata Dubiel
Department of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University