IU math curriculum makes national impact

The Mathematics Throughout the Curriculum program, first formed in 1994, is facing its most ambitious project yet.\nMTC is going national.\nThe program's focus has gone from creating course prototypes to a widespread process of "dissemination" -- taking its message across the country by way of books, newsletters and workshops.\n"Dissemination is really our buzzword right now," said Daniel Maki, IU mathematics professor and one of MTC's founding fathers. "We're not trying to change the infrastructure at IU currently; we're trying to encourage changes in other schools."\nMorteza Shafii-Mousavi, a mathematics professor at IU-South Bend, has coordinated an economics and mathematics course, one of the MTC-developed courses. \n"Since 1996, we have presented information about our course at national conferences twice a year," Shafii-Mousavi said. "We also do workshops at other universities that want to learn from our project."\nThe dissemination process will continue this summer with two workshops, Viewpoints 2005 on mathematics and art, and Making Waves 2005 on math and science in the classroom. Equally far reaching is a chapter devoted entirely to MTC in the newly-released book, "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Contributions of Research Universities." The book was published in 2004 by IU Press, with the chapter co-written by IU professors Maki and Marc Frantz and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis professor Bart Ng.\nThe message the professors of MTC are teaching is an important one, Maki wrote in an article published in IU's Research & Creative Activity magazine in the spring of 2002.\n"Mathematics is, or should be, a part of the education of almost every student from elementary school into college," Maki wrote. "Comparisons with other countries on certain standard tests show that the United States is behind in preparing students to understand and use mathematics and statistics."\nIn the effort to correct this imbalance, Maki said, MTC set three goals: creating interdisciplinary courses involving faculty from a variety of disciplines; helping students identify more strongly with mathematics; and making permanent positive cultural changes in teaching and learning of mathematics.\nThis last goal, perhaps the most expansive of the three, has become the theme of MTC's future. \nThe program began by developing new courses for IU, integrating math into various other disciplines such as speech and hearing, business and art. \nMTC's humble beginnings have grown into a repertoire of nationally attended workshops, over 22 interdisciplinary courses, speeches, books and newsletters. \n"There are a lot of unknown but hopeful things sprouting up around the country because of MTC," said Marc Frantz, a research associate and math professor at IU-Purdue University in Indianapolis, responsible in part for the creation and continuing success of the program. \nIts initial course prototype blended business and mathematics, giving students math applications to use in the business world. \nThis first set of curriculum ideas was one of seven chosen by the National Science Foundation from a pool of 200 to receive a grant and the only one of the seven still continuing its work.\n"In the late '90s, we did some research," Maki said. "We found there was a little more interest in taking math, a little more understanding that math is important to students after taking the MTC courses."\nShafii-Mousavi, Frantz and Maki agree that the greatest success of the MTC program has been its ability to bring professors of various disciplines together to help students see the applications of mathematics in the real world.\n"The bottom line is we're pleased with it," Maki said. "It's worked."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Anne Zelek at azelek@indiana.edu.