2018 MAA Seaway Section Meeting
This two day event covered workshops, student poster presentations and discussions, and presentations from our distinguished invited speakers. Presentations covered topics across the field of mathematics with the goal to stir discussion and interest.
Invited Speakers
See the list of invited speakers and athe abstract of their talks below.
- Eugenia Cheng, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- How To Bake Pi: making abstract mathematics palatable — Why does mathematics inspire love in some people and fear in others? Why do some people think mathematics is important for everyone while others think it is a collection of gibberish touching little of the world beyond the brains of some rare geniuses? Why do some think it is a creative art akin to poetry and music, while others think it is a boring tool for producing answers? In this talk I present mathematics as a way of thinking, and not just about numbers. I aim to show that math can be made fun, intriguing, and relevant for people of all ages, by means of hand-on activities, examples that everyone can relate to, and peculiar anecdotes. There will be a distinct emphasis on edible examples.
- Satyan L. Devadoss, University of San Diego
- The Shape of Associativity — Associativity is ubiquitous in mathematics. Unlike commutativity, its more popular cousin, associativity has for the most part taken a backseat in importance. But over the past few decades, this concept has blossomed and matured. We start with a brief look at how this has transpired, and then explore the visualization of associativity in the forms of polytopes, manifolds, and complexes.
- Patti Frazer Lock, St. Lawrence University
- Data Analysis in the Mathematics Curriculum — Statistics is one of the fastest growing fields nationally and globally. How does this growing interest in statistics and data science fit in with the mathematics curriculum? Should our math majors be exposed to data analysis? If so, what course or courses should they see? What should those courses look like? What recommendations do the national organizations make? And how can we meet those recommendations in a time of limited resources? We discuss the recommendations, the current status in the field, and ideas for implementing the recommendations.
- Deanna Haunsperger, MAA President, Carleton College
- Does Your Vote Count? — Are you frustrated that your candidate never wins? Does it seem like your vote doesn’t count? Maybe it doesn’t. Or at least not as much as the voting method with which you choose to tally the votes. Together we’ll take a glimpse into the important, interesting, paradoxical world of the mathematics behind tallying elections.
- Jim Matthews, Siena College (IBL Special Session)
- Mathematical Treats for Inquiring Minds —In this workshop we will share engaging materials that provide students from kindergarten through calculus with a learning environment based on inquiry. The materials are focused on mathematical problem solving. The problems (fairly) easily lead to students asking their own questions and they connect to broad mathematical topics including patterns, counting, proportional reasoning, algebraic reasoning, and functional relationships. While we work through workshop materials, we will discuss not only how specific problems can be used but we will also emphasize ways we might encourage pre-service and in-service teachers to incorporate more inquiry based lessons in their teaching.
Contributed Talks and Student Presentations
Mathematics students and faculty from multiple colleges participated in presentations and discussions related to the field of mathematics. Click here to see the abstracts of from the contributed talks and click here to see the abstracts from the student talks and poster presentations.
Contact
If you are interested in attending a future SEAWAY Meeting, please contact Nathan Reff.