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The Pathways workshop will engage participants in examining problems and investigations designed to support students in understanding the central ideas of Precalculus that have been revealed to be necessary for learning Calculus. Workshop participants will be engaged in discussions about learning the key ideas that are foundational for calculus such as rate of change, function, function composition, exponential growth, and trigonometry. Workshop participants will also collaborate in examining tasks that have been effective in helping students learn to solve applied problems and use formulas and graphs to explore how quantities in a problem context change together. Select student materials and instructor resources that have been effective in improving student learning and success in precalculus, college algebra and beginning algebra will be shared. Workshop participants will also be given a copy of the Precalculus Concept Assessment (PCA), an instrument that has been validated to assess student readiness for Calculus. See references.

Registration

Space is limited, please fill out the following registration [form.](https://iastate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4SCHpSnBXp1OZRH)
Registration deadline is July 8.
The workshop is free. Lunch will be provided.
Applicants will be informed of the status of their application on July 11.

Facilitator: Marilyn Carlson

Dr. Carlson is currently a professor in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Arizona State University. She began her career has a secondary mathematics teacher, and has been Director of First Year Mathematics at both the University of Kansas and Arizona State University. For over 25 years she has worked with teachers to help them make precalculus and beginning calculus more meaningful and learnable. She has numerous publications related to this work. Her current NSF grant, Project Pathways, is studying transitions in precalculus level teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) and its effect on their teaching practices and students’ learning. Her publications report research that has investigated the process of learning and teaching precalculus and beginning calculus. She was the Coordinator of the MAA Special Interest Group for Research in Mathematics Education, and co-edited the MAA Volume, Making the Connection: Research to Practice in Mathematics Education. She has received NSF funding to conduct research on teaching and learning of precalculus and beginning calculus. In 2007 she received the MAA Selden Award for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, and in 2013 she received the Outstanding Doctoral Mentor Award in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.

For more information, contact Timothy McNicholl, mcnichol@iastate.edu