Widening the Scope of Peer Mentoring in the Mathematics Curriculum at UWEC

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Widening the Scope of Peer Mentoring in the
Mathematics Curriculum at UWEC

• Alex Smith, Don Reynolds, Elizabeth Burgener

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Dream

• Find effective ways to use the talents of upper
  division mathematics majors to improve the
  quality of education in lower division courses
• .Peer Mentoring

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What do we already do?

• Math Lab does a really good job
• We have funds to pay for "paper graders" and many
  of us make very good use of these students' time
• First Year Experience Sections have mentors...
• ..Who do not get paid!

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• QUESTIONIf mentoring is so important, why do we
  not pay our mentors?
• QUESTIONWhy do we not use our paper graders
  as mentors?
• ANSWERWho would grade the papers?

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OUR EXPERIMENT

• Use a Web-Based Homework Management System to do
  the grading
• Possible products include MapleTA and WebWork
• Use our Paper Grader as a peer mentor both
  inside and outside of the classroom.
• She was responsible for appeals in MapleTA
  homework grading, helped students with homework,
  and assisted in Maple lab activities.

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Links

• What Student's knew about the project
• Our Grant (Planning to Widen the Scope of Peer
  Mentoring in the UWEC Mathematics Curriculum)
• Class Homepage
• MapleTA Class Homepage

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TypicalTextbook Bank of Exercises
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Results of our Survey
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