Supporting Assessment in Undergraduate
Mathematics (SAUM)
Michael Pearson (MAA) and Tom
Rishel (Cornell University)
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Description
Assessment of student learning addresses three
questions:
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What should our students learn?
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How well are they learning?
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What should we change so that future students will learn more and understand
it better?
The SAUM Section Forums include a brief overview of assessment as viewed
in the SAUM project, a discussion of some assessment case studies from
SAUM and MAA Notes #49, and an opportunity for participants to share
their experiences with assessment.
Bios
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Michael Pearson
MAA Director of Programs and Services, is currently on
leave from his faculty position at Mississippi State University, where he
served as Associate Department Head and often had to assess the veracity
of students complaints against their instructors, university parking
regulations, and local law enforcement. He received his Ph.D. in
Harmonic Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin in 1989.
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Tom Rishel
The first mathematical meeting Tom Rishel ever attended was an Allegheny
Mountain Section meeting at Carnegie Mellon University. He was then a
graduate student writing his thesis in topology for Professor Jun-Iti Nagata
at the University of Pittsburgh. After a stint as a post-doc at Dalhousie
University in Canada, Tom moved to Cornell University for a one-year
position. Twenty-seven years later, Tom finally left for two years as the
Associate Director of the Mathematical Association in Washington, D.C. Now
he is back to teaching mathematics for Cornell again, this time at its new
Weill Cornell Medical College in the nation of Qatar.