MathCS Capstone Day A Conference Celebration

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Math/CS Capstone Day A Conference Celebration

• Karen Saxe, Macalester College
• PEW MIDSTATES SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS CONSORTIUM
• Faculty Development Workshop
• Capstone Experiences
• Transitioning Students Beyond College
• March 3-5, 2006

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The Capstone Experience How Does it Work?

• The Paper
• Work all year, one-on-one, with faculty
• Based on course-work or independent work
• Literature review, original research, original
  programming, statistical analysis

• The Presentation
• Capstone Conference
• 20 minute talks, parallel sessions
• Classes cancelled, attendance
• Great experience!

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Our Goals?

• To help students consolidate knowledge and skills
  gained in coursework
• To help students demonstrate a capability for
  independent work
• To provide experience in communicating both at a
  professional and at a laymans level.

4
A Few Technical Details

• First reader second reader
• Mandatory attendance at regular seminar meetings
  of all seniors and faculty
• Deadlines

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Example Capstone Projects (2005)

• Row Sums in the Character Table of the Symmetric
  Group
• Twenty-five Years after the Deregulation Act
  Economic Determinants of Airline Safety
• Liouvilles Theorem and Transcendental Numbers
• The Personalization of a Web Based Query
  Interface for the Gene Ontology Database
• Pi A Historical Perspective
• Art Gallery Theorems A Computational Geometry
  Approach
• Optimal Baseball Batting Orders Using Markov
  Chains
• Security Issues with Electronic Voting

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Benefits/Challenges

• Student pride in project
• Oral presentation experience value
• Great campus visibility for department, and
  admiration!

• Time pressure for faculty
• Time pressure for students (detracts from efforts
  in classes)
• The few bad students