Directions For Mathematics Research Experience For Undergraduates

“The US National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in mathematics is now 25 years old, and it is a good time to think about what it has achieved, how it has changed, and where this idea will go next.”This was the premise of the conference held at Mt. Holyoke College during 21-22 June, 2013, and this circle of ideas is brought forward in this volume. The conference brought together diverse points of view, from NSF administrators, leaders of university-wide honors programs, to faculty who had led REUs, recent PhDs who are expected to lead them soon, and students currently in an REU themselves. The conversation was so varied that it justifies a book-length attempt to capture all that was suggested, reported, and said. Among the contributors are Ravi Vakil (Stanford), Haynes Miller (MIT), and Carlos Castillo-Chavez (Arizona, President's Obama Committee on the National Medal of Science 2010-2012).This book should serve not only as a collection of speakers' notes, but also as a source book for anyone interested in teaching mathematics and in the possibility of incorporating research-like experiences in mathematics classes at any level, as well as designing research experiences for undergraduates outside of the classroom.

A Mathematician's Practical Guide to Mentoring Undergraduate Research is a complete how-to manual on starting an undergraduate research program. Readers will find advice on setting appropriate problems, directing student progress, managing group dynamics, obtaining external funding, publishing student results, and a myriad of other relevant issues. The authors have decades of experience and have accumulated knowledge that other mathematicians will find extremely useful.

This volume provides accessible and self-contained research problems designed for undergraduate student projects, and simultaneously promotes the development of sustainable undergraduate research programs. The chapters in this work span a variety of topical areas of pure and applied mathematics and mathematics education. Each chapter gives a self-contained introduction on a research topic with an emphasis on the specific tools and knowledge needed to create and maintain fruitful research programs for undergraduates. Some of the topics discussed include:• Disease modeling• Tropical curves and surfaces• Numerical semigroups• Mathematics EducationThis volume will primarily appeal to undergraduate students interested in pursuing research projects and faculty members seeking to mentor them. It may also aid students and faculty participating in independent studies and capstone projects.

Speaking directly to the growing importance of research experience in undergraduate mathematics programs, this volume offers suggestions for undergraduate-appropriate research projects in mathematical and computational biology for students and their faculty mentors. The aim of each chapter is twofold: for faculty, to alleviate the challenges of identifying accessible topics and advising students through the research process; for students, to provide sufficient background, additional references, and context to excite students in these areas and to enable them to successfully undertake these problems in their research. Some of the topics discussed include: • Oscillatory behaviors present in real-world applications, from seasonal outbreaks of childhood diseases to action potentials in neurons • Simulating bacterial growth, competition, and resistance with agent-based models and laboratory experiments • Network structure and the dynamics of biological systems • Using neural networks to identify bird species from birdsong samples • Modeling fluid flow induced by the motion of pulmonary cilia Aimed at undergraduate mathematics faculty and advanced undergraduate students, this unique guide will be a valuable resource for generating fruitful research collaborations between students and faculty.

While there seems to be no easy way of turning undergraduates into research mathematicians, some schools have run successful programmes which increased the research participation of their students. Many such model programmes are presented in this book. Dramatic results were achieved in various intensive summer programmes, when full attention was devoted to the research process.

Receiving a college education has perhaps never been more important than it is today. While its personal, societal, and overall economic benefits are well documented, too many college students fail to complete their postsecondary education. As colleges and universities are investing substantial resources into efforts to counter these attrition rates and increase retention, they are mostly unaware of the robust literature on student success that is often bounded in disciplinary silos. The purpose of this book is to bring together in a single volume the extensive knowledge on college student success. It includes seven chapters from authors who each synthesize the literature from their own field of study, or perspective. Each describes the theories, models, and concepts they use; summarizes the key findings from their research; and provides implications for practice, policy, and/or research. The disciplinary chapters offer perspectives from higher education, public policy, behavioral economics, social psychology, STEM, sociology, and critical and post-structural theory.

Mathematics research opportunities for undergraduate students have grown significantly in recent years, but accessible research topics for first- and second-year students with minimal experience beyond high school mathematics are still hard to find. To address this need, this volume provides beginning students with specific research projects and the tools required to tackle them. Most of these projects are accessible to students who have not yet taken Calculus, but students who know some Calculus will find plenty to do here as well. Chapters are self-contained, presenting projects students can pursue, along with essential background material and suggestions for further reading. Suggested prerequisites are noted at the beginning of each chapter. Some topics covered include: games on graphs modeling of biological systems mosaics and virtual knots mathematics for sustainable humanity mathematical epidemiology Mathematics Research for the Beginning Student, Volume 1 will appeal to undergraduate students at two- and four-year colleges who are interested in pursuing mathematics research projects. Faculty members interested in serving as advisors to these students will find ideas and guidance as well. This volume will also be of interest to advanced high school students interested in exploring mathematics research for the first time. A separate volume with research projects for students who have already studied calculus is also available.

Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included, accepted, valued, and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover, belonging is influenced by the campus environment, relationships, and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered, a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored, and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging.Over the last 10 years, colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention, persistence, and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors, the term “student sense of belonging” gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition, or an overarching theoretical approach, as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research, applications, and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist, so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study.