BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY
          DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS CALENDAR
 
                        Week of October 26 - 30

Monday, October 26

12:30 APPLIED MATHEMATICS SEMINAR  - Room 400 MSC
      So-Hsiang Chou, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "Raviart-Thomas spaces"

 3:30 ANALYSIS SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
      Juan Bes, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "Hypercyclic Vectors, II"

Tuesday, October 27

10:30 ALGEBRA SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
      Warren McGovern, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "Lattice-ordered groups: hyper-archimedean l-groups"

 3:30 GROUPS AND GEOMETRIES SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
      Sergey Shpectorov, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "The Leech lattice and Conway groups"

Wednesday, October 28
 
 2:30 STATISTICS SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
      John Carson, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "One-sided multivariate inference"
      
Thursday, October 29

 3:30 GROUPS AND GEOMETRIES SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
      Sergey Shpectorov, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "The Leech lattice and Conway groups"

Friday, October 30

 3:30 Coffee
 3:45 COLLOQUIUM  - Room 459 MSC
      John Gresser, Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU 
      "Maple as an idea instrument"
      Abstract: We have all engaged in the struggle to take
        mathematics beyond computation, to teach it as a discipline of
        ideas as well as one of computation .  When we are lucky
        enough to have a receptive audience that buys into our world
        of ideas, we all know what to say, and the experience is both
        joyful and successful.  Oh yes, this is how mathematics should
        be taught.

        As we all know, however, this process does not work with most
        of our undergraduate students.  We still teach ideas, but our
        students largely ignore them, and concentrate instead on
        memorization and calculation.  It is easy to see why.  Our
        calculations are so complicated, that students focus all of
        their attention on calculation, rather than ideas.  Students
        actually like calculation.  It's an escape, something they can
        do without thinking. Furthermore, our exams are often too long
        and too crammed with calculation, which only reinforces
        memorization and calculation as the tools of choice in their
        war against bad grades.

        This is not an easy problem to fix, and Maple is no panacea,
        but it can certainly be used to promote mathematical
        understanding.  With Maple, students can focus all of their
        energy on IDEAS and let the computer take care of the
        calculations.  Additionally, it makes our students active
        participants in the process, so they have no choice but to
        climb on board.  It is a wondrous opportunity for the teaching
        of mathematics as a discipline of ideas.

        Do students like Maple?  Some students obviously get very
        excited about it.  Many others do not like it at all.  It
        takes away most of their computational responsibilities (which
        they find comforting), and puts them in charge of all the
        ideas (which they are unsure of).  Admittedly, there are some
        Maple idiosyncrasies that can deal a severe blow to a
        mathematical exercise, and this contributes in a minor way to
        student stress, but a little experience in working with Maple
        quickly eliminates most of these difficulties.  Problems are
        usually mathematical, often resulting in mathematically
        ill-defined input statements.  To communicate with a computer,
        students must express themselves logically, and precisely.
        But surely, this is something we wish to promote anyway.

        The purpose of this talk is not to teach Maple, but to show by
        example how it can be used to promote ideas.  Some examples
        are very elementary, others are more complicated.  A few might
        even be exciting.  You might be surprised by what our students
        are capable of doing with this technology.