It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s SUPER-Math!
November 13th, 2009 by UH ManoaTo Professor Monique Chyba, math is a beautiful thing. So much, in fact, that she has organized “An Afternoon of Beautiful Mathematics” events at the Campus Center for the past two years, to foster the interests and talents of math- and science-loving youth throughout the community.
Now she is the principal investigator of SUPER-M, which stands for School and University Partnerships for Educational Renewal in Mathematics. Funded in 2009 by the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education program, the $2.8 million grant allows Super-M Graduate Teaching Fellows from the UH Mānoa Department of Mathematics to work one-on-one with state Department of Education teachers in grades K-12. The partnership’s goal: to bring top-notch math expertise into the public schools, and make high-level math concepts accessible on all islands.
Super-M Fellow John Marriott regularly travels to Kaumana Elementary in Hilo, where he and pre-K to sixth-grade teachers collaboratively design innovative lessons. John’s area specialty is control theory, a field of applied math that’s useful when delving into the world of autonomous robots. Imagine—these Big Island youngsters are being exposed to sophisticated robotics and challenging problem-solving theory while still in elementary school!
Super-M Fellow Jean Verrette goes twice a week to Halau Lokahi, a public charter school on Waiakamilo Road where she, students and teachers engage in classroom math activities that are far from the norm. For example, the kids are taught traditional navigational skills to provide motivation and enhance intuition while learning geometry and trigonometry. Next semester, Jean will also facilitate student projects while utilizing computer programming, and parallel programming to explore math in marine science.
These Super-M Fellows are proving that teaching and learning math can be a beautiful thing. To track the SUPER-M, visit http://www2.math.hawaii.edu/superm/.
From left, SUPER-M Fellows Austin Anderson, Marisa Billington, Jean Verrette, Hye Jung Kim, John Marriott and Tristan Holmes.
Diane Chang, B.A. 1979, J.D. 2012, is director of communications for the UH Mānoa campus. See http://manoa.hawaii.edu/.
Tags: Monique Chyba, National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education, SUPER-M
November 16th, 2009 at 7:08 am
As someone who just graduated with his B.S. in mathematics from UH (and I'm working on my M.Ed. at HPU), I gotta say that SUPER-M is a great program. I'm glad to see an added emphasis on bringing creative, advanced mathematics into the classroom. I try to do that in my classroom (although I don't have the expertise that Tristan and the others have).
November 27th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Cheers for the great post - I enjoyed reading it! I always enjoy reading this blog.