Math Department Minutes –9/3/2013

Announcements

  1. Thanks Chalyce for getting updated textbooks to the tutoring center!
  2. SmartBoard installation in D224 scheduled for Friday, 9/20 (9am-2pm). Karin Stacy will be working with the vendor to set up 2 hours of free start-up training and there is room for 13 faculty members. Timing will be a Friday – still TBA. Watch for emails.

There will be an email sent out asking for names of interested parties.

  1. Revised insert for education majors on the adjunct handbook webpage that addresses syllabus inserts (
  2. AMATYC 10/31 – 11/3 in Anaheim, California. (your little ones might like to meet a cute large rodent…)

Dan will contact those interested in a group proposal. UAF1 and UAF2 adjuncts do have access to up to $3000 to spend on professional development.

  1. For the 2013 Fall semester, each student receives 5 free private tutoring sessions for one of their classes, regulations apply. Sessions are scheduled for 5 consecutive weeks, so if your students were using the free sessions, we would sign them up for 5 sessions. If one of your students only wanted 2 free sessions, he/she would have to forfeit the remaining 3 free sessions, so it would be to the student’s advantage to sign up for all 5.
  2. Math Scholarships through ECC Foundation. Remind students to apply!!!

The ECC Foundation accepts and processes applications on a quarterly basis.The next quarterly deadline is Sunday, September 15, 2013.

Math Excellence & Improvement Awards

  • 3.2 GPA
  • Minimum 6 credit hours course load
  • Math Excellence Award – Must be enrolled or have completed Math 201 or 202 as one of the top students in either course
  • Math Improvement Award – Student must begin in developmental math and have successful completion of 1 calculus course,
  • Both awards are granted for 1 semester only and may be used as a transfer scholarship
  • Math Committee works with Financial Aid Office (Christopher Lawrence) to make final recommendations based upon top qualified candidates

Donald Holstrom Scholarship Fund for Excellence in Math

  • 3.0 GPA
  • Minimum 6 credit hours course load
  • District 509 residency
  • Financial Need
  1. Has anyone seen Catherine? (only kidding….just checking to see if anyone is reading this!)
  2. Textbook Committees for 2013/14: The following books will likely go into new editions next year: MTH 090, MTH 097, MTH 101, and MTH 125. There will be a call for textbook committees at a future meeting date.
  3. NIU Conference: What do post-secondary faculty need to know about the new K-12 standards and assessments?

Who: NIU and community college faculty, staff, and administrators

When: September 20, 2013

Where: NIU, Barsema Alumni and VisitorsCenter, 231 North Annie Glidden Road, DeKalb, IL

Cost: Free and lunch isincluded (registration required to attend)

NIU has invited 15 from ECC – contact Julie Shaid (look for her previously sent email for more details) if you are interested in attending.

Kris Campbell and Dave Lawrence will attend.

  1. Coordinator positions

Need a math lab coordinator (6 hour release time) and a replacement for Lauren (formula for pay is in the contract; recently, it has amounted to roughly 3 hour release time per semester). Contact Terri if you have questions about the math lab position. Also talk to Libby. If you are interested in the cocoordinator position, ask Lauren, Dan or Nicole and notify Vicki if you are interested so you can meet with James.

  1. IAI panel vacancies (Contact Jamie Pang for more information or if you are interested; You can also discuss with Catherine who serves on the math gen ed panel. View current vacancies at

If you are interested, talk with Catherine. ECC representation on this panel is very beneficial, so if Catherine is not going to continue to serve, it would be great if someone from our department did. Libby Roeger is another source for information on what the position entails.

  1. Math Lab Updates (see Terri’s email(s))
  • All of the textbooks are in for each math class! The list has been updated and the current textbooks are now in the locked cabinet underneath the sign in desk. Please be sure to have students sign in and out the textbooks. Keep the cabinet locked if you have to step away from the desk/room. The key is currently taped inside the cabinet. (As we had a couple of books disappear last semester.) Our student workers will monitor this activity once they begin.
  • We are hiring three students for all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am searching for one additional student for Thursday. It will probably take 1-2 weeks for them to complete their hire packet and get put into the HR system. Thanks for your patience.
  • Student ids: At this point, it is not necessary to get students to sign in with their student ids. We discussed this at our training, that it was preferred to have the id for data collecting purposes, but it seems some students have a concern with having their id printed for others to see. Let’s just scrap this until we have a better system. 
  • We have hired two additional facilitators who will be working on Tuesday and Wednesday, let’s welcome Rinal Shah and May Jaber. Filling the Monday and Wednesday 5-7pm, has proven to be a challenge! So, currently we will not be open on Monday and Wednesday evenings until we find a fill in.
  • We extended our hours 3-4 M-TH (Terri and Kris) and students have been coming in! We will continue to keep the math lab open during that time, unless we have a math dept meeting.
  • Calculator workshops: focused on the 112 student using the TI-84:

Wednesday 9/18 5 pm-7pm with Rinal Shah

Thursday 9/19 10am-noon with Linda Wade

These will be held in the math lab and so it will be closed to regular activity during these hours. Youcan refer 098 students who are thinking about taking 112. A poster will be hanging in the math lab with information for students.

  1. Textbooks, Bundles, and Generic Courses – oh my!

~The soft cover / loose-leaf books have the same content as the hardcover books we get from Jane – they are just a lot cheaper! (The only thing that may differ is occasionally we cut chapters from some books in courses where we don’t cover that content.)

~Continue to remind students in 096 (as well as 098 and 099 – in case they don’t pass) to keep their book and MML code (if unused) for 098 next semester.

~Also, if you had to get DIFFERENT ACCESS CODES from Andrea, remind your students that if they have to take 096, 098, or 099 next semester, they should NOT have to pay for a new access code. Those students will need to communicate with their new instructors (who will have to work with Andrea () to get them an access code).

~Anyone who wants assistance with using our custom 096/098/099 can contact Pamela DiBerardino ().

For the future – the next addition of the stats textbook will have a mystatlab code rather than a mymathlab code.

Old Business

  1. Volunteer Opportunity: Needs regarding our newly implemented 096/098 sequence
  2. Committees to rewrite finals

For MTH 096, Naima, Nicole, Greg, and Terri will serve. Contact Naima if you are interested in participating.

For MTH 098, Kenny, Jean, Dave, and Lauren will serve. Contact Kenny if you are interested in participating. The committee needs to include the assessment questions (10 of them) in 098 and they need to give a note clarifying what is in the outcomes and what is not. The questions that are no longer covering objectives still have to be given but do not need to be factored into the grade.

  • Volunteers are needed to gather data on time spent on each chapter and to update emath instructor information files.

The purpose of this is to provide more guidance for new instructors. Please track by hours spent on topic and send the information to Lauren at the end of the semester. She will compile the information.

  1. Status of general education mathematics courses at ECC
  2. Mth101 was updated by Mary Ann Tuerk over the summer (among other things, it now emphasizes technology in the algebra unit). Go to the instructor information page on emath ( to see the files.
  3. Open question: Do we want to pursue a different or additional general education math course?

A committee will be formed to put together a proposal. It will be brought to the department for approval and then needs to be submitted by December for implementation next fall. We will be developing a general education mathematics course, either in addition to or as a replacement for Quantitative Literacy. Dan and Nicole will serve, and volunteers should contact either of them. Mary Ann needs to be consulted for her input from her work over the last year on this topic.

  1. Assessment Reports
  2. 098/099 (Terri)
  3. 134 (Nicole)

Copies of the analysis have been attached. We will be repeating the questions this fall for further analysis.

New Business

  1. Courses for assessment for 2013/14

For the people working on the final, pick some objectives/questions with an eye to assessing 096 this spring. Lauren needs to know which objectives we will focus on.

We are scheduled to assess MTH 114 in the spring of 2014. We need assessment questions for next semester. Dan and Terri will serve on the committee for this and volunteers should contact Terri.

  1. Equipment requests – deans prioritizing on 9/5. We are requesting 4 ELMOs (F212, F213, F214, F216). Other equipment requests?

We will be requesting SPSS liscenses if the cost is not too excessive. Mathtype licenses should be available. If you need access to this, follow up with Jeff Bejcek. We will also be requesting a recording elmo and cart for use in the department.

  1. Volunteers for College Night (Tuesday, 10/1)?

Need two or three folks volunteer and represent math. Dave and Nicole will attend and any adjuncts who want to participate should contact Nicole.

  1. Mentoring proposal (Dan)

There will be two different tiers - whether you are brand new to community college and whether you are just new to ECC. Anyone can be involved as a mentee and mentors are drawn from the same pool of people who do the observations. There will be a stipend for participating as either a mentee or a mentor. The committee is meeting this Thursday and Dan will send more information if it is approved.

  1. Department picnic (Dan)

There will be a full department picnic this fall. Families are invited and Dan will pick a park in the fox valley area for a central location that will accommodate children. It is tentatively set for Saturday afternoon September 28th 4-6 pm. Additional information will be provided by Dan.

  1. Replacing PLATO? (Lauren)

This was used for 096 and 098 and allowed students to accelerate through the sequence. James would like to look into finding a software program to develop a course that will help accelerate through the program. Naima is interested in pursuing this and Dan will be piloting a software package (computer-based learning) in the spring that he can give info about. One question to consider, is there a body of students to serve with this?

7. Signage for study areas (Gary)

Nicole will submit a request to Jane for signage for the area in the corner of the faculty offices as well as the center area across from the math lab.

8. Outside speakers (Kris)

Kris will contact Peggy Gundrum about possibilities.

9. Late enrollment in summer school (Kris)

It was pointed out that students can enroll up to the second Monday of summer classes without instructor approval and this needs to be brought into line with the policy of the regular semester. Registration will be contacted about this.