Section NExT

Lunch and Workshop:  Friday, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM 

Title: Representing Change: How Students Reason About Dynamic Quantities

Presenter: Irma Stevens

Abstract: Modeling quantities in dynamic situations is an important part of analyzing relationships, whether it's modeling the spread of disease over time, temperature vs altitude, or area as a function of a radius. In these situations, we often engage in covariational reasoning - reasoning about how quantities change together. In this presentation, we engage collectively in representing relationships between dynamic quantities. We will then share some of the ways undergraduate students reason about dynamic situations and share how research on covariational reasoning can be used to support students' understanding of how to represent relationships between changing quantities. 

Bio: Irma Stevens is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics & Applied Mathematical Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. She is a mathematics education researcher who has spent over a decade sitting with students and instructors at the secondary and postsecondary level to learn more about how they think and learn about mathematics. In particular, she is interested in supporting students in learning to represent quantities in dynamic situations at the (pre)calculus level. She is a committee member on the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Education Committee, member of the Rhode Island Department of Education's Math Collaborative to support students' transition to postsecondary education, and a frequenter of the SIGMAA on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME) conference. Irma loves jogging outside and all things chocolate.  

Look at the NES/MAA website under GET INVOLVED/SECTION NEXT https://www.northeastern.maa.org/section-next for information about NES/MAA Section NExT and the spring conference. Pay particular attention to the benefits for those in their first four years of teaching.