STUDENT SURVEY OF THE MATH DEPARTMENT

IT'S SURVEY TIME

• Why did I take a survey?
• I transferred from an honors math program in Gainesville Florida for the math program.
• I love it here. I and many others have been preparing for grad studies and graduation.
• We started to have some ideas, the more I talked to people the more ideas came up.
• It seemed like there were a lot of ideas about so I thought, Survey!

OPPS!

OVERALL GOALS

• Attract more women to math
• Increase class participation
• Increase retention of material
• Increase use of technology
• Become more competitive both as a school and academically.

A FEW THINGS WE'VE DISCUSSED WITH FACULTY

• Nights and weekend access to chalkboards (needs approval from admin)
• Switch the whiteboard out in the CPM lab with a working board (maintenance?)
• Students volunteered to host GRE subject test study sessions, and help out.
• We are going to arrange workshops on Latex, MatLab, and other languages.
• Video taped recitations, more projects, reduce homework load

SURVEY RESULTS!

HOMEWORK AND STUDY (PER WEEK)

WORK STATS

• More than a few students expressed they had no time to study due to hw
• This seemed to cause them quite a bit of distress
• The maximum values recorded was 20 hours for homework only
• And 9 hours for studying only.
• This leaves no time to do the reading, or rework problem areas.

HOW HAPPY ARE STUDENTS WITH CURRENT USE OF TECH?

IDEAS FROM STUDENTS ABOUT INCREASING TECH USE

• Use of the latex language for some assignments and projects.
• More use of MatLab software in assignments
• Install the MatLab software into both of the Math dept. computer labs.
• More projects both applied and pure.
• More advising resources such as career center materials etc.

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL ABOUT VIDEO TAPED RECITATIONS?

TO BE FAIR MANY PEOPLE WERE NOT SURE WHAT A RECITATION WAS,

GRE SUBJECT TEST?

CONTEXT!

INCREASED PARTICIPATION

INCREASED PARTICIPATION WAS DEFINED AS

• Presenting topics and material
• Assigning homework
• Displaying and choosing examples

DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO DEVELOP RESEARCH INTERESTS?

MORE RESEARCH IN MATH?

• Most schools participate in undergraduate mathematics research
• Some programs are a daily part of the program
• Some programs are taught in the summer as six week workshops

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FUNDING OF THE DEPT IN GENERAL?

• Adjectives:
• Completely forgotten, random, neglected
• Dark, dusty, smell reminiscent of fish, severely lacking
• Many students compared the funding of NSB to that of CMP
• We take classes in NSB too, they use clickers, slides, their labs have materials.

IDEAS! WE'VE A LOT

• The CPM computers are the worst in the school.
• We would like to create a math life skills class for non majors.
• We would like to add a math element to the Helman program.
• Add a research methods in mathematics course
• Study skills workshops, programming workshops, lots of things!

HELP!

SMALL MATH PROGRAMS ARE THE BEST MATH PROGRAMS

SO WE HOPE YOU WILL SUPPORT US!

BECAUSE MATH MAJORS AREN'T SCARY