But this was no small feat, and it was far from a solo effort. In addition to collaborating closely with Dr. Bailey, the MATH 370 students received detailed feedback and guidance from faculty across the Chemistry Department, including Dr. Yvonne Gindt, Dr. Hendrik Eshuis, and Dr. Nina Goodey. Their involvement ensured that the videos were not only mathematically sound, but precisely tailored to what chemistry students actually need.

The result? The , a dedicated resource now available exclusively to current Montclair State students through its own website. It stands as a living example of what becomes possible when departments work together with students at the center.

We are incredibly proud of the students who made this happen. A heartfelt congratulations to Alex Brown, Lauren Khalil, Veronica Rodriguez, Christian Romito, Lisbeth Rosario Burdier, Melissa Sanchez Casa, and Tracy Tobar. We also wanted to give a special shoutout to Lauren Khalil for designing the logo for the video series. Your hard work and dedication will help your fellow Red Hawks succeed for semesters to come!

This is Montclair State at its best, students lifting each other up, faculty bridging disciplines, and a community coming together in the spirit of learning. Well done, Red Hawks!

The Balancing Acts routine is an approach to teaching the concepts of equality and equivalence, which span K-16 education and are fundamental to mathematics and the sciences. Without a solid grounding in these foundational concepts, students will find themselves unprepared for college-level coursework in mathematics and the natural sciences. This can be especially detrimental to STEM students, because without that foundation, they will be less likely to persist in a STEM major and enter the STEM workforce. It is in this regard that in response to an identified need in the math and science knowledge of incoming STEM students at Montclair, Dean Kight called on math education faculty to develop learning experiences to address this critical issue.

The Balancing Acts approach leverages a familiar and ancient technology – the balance scale – as a tool for embodied learning that teachers can use to teach the relational sense of the equal sign. The relational sense of the equal sign promotes a view of an equation as a comparison of two equivalent quantities, as in the equation “8 + 5 = x + 7,” which means that 8 + 5 is the same as an unknown number added to 7. While a variety of tools can and should be used to support students’ learning of equivalence, Dr. Panorkou and Dr. Greenstein hypothesized that the singular use of the balance model across multiple instances of equivalence in the curriculum gives students an “object to think with” that they can rely on to recognize equivalence as a big idea of math and science throughout their K-12 coursework. Here are screenshots of a few activities:

The Summer Institute was held at PRISM, the University’s STEM professional development provider. Its goals were to introduce the Balancing Acts approach to teachers, collaborate with them to design new activities that are tailored to their curriculum, and test and refine pedagogical practices for implementing them in their classrooms. Here’s some of the feedback the teachers shared with us:

I was very honored to be chosen to be a part of this fellowship and proud to share my ideas. The collaboration amongst teachers is inspiring.

I thought the activities were excellent – very engaging and fun. I think students would love them. I thought the sequential way the activities were ordered led to deeper and deeper understanding of the concepts.

The workshop was highly engaging, especially with the focus on hands-on activities, like the Balancing Acts. I found the practical approach and digital resources particularly valuable, as I believe these tools will be incredibly beneficial for the students. I’m looking forward to more interactive learning opportunities!

Dr. Greenstein, Dr. Panorkou, and their doctoral research assistants will continue their professional learning with teachers in monthly meetings throughout the year to further refine the Balancing Acts approach.

• Parsippany High School
• Parsippany Hills High School
• Livingston High School
• Montville High School
• Kearney High School
• West Milford High School

Four Math Ambassadors (Kaitlyn Cohan, Vlad Nita, Preston Pietruszewski, Ryan Avallone) helped with several aspects of the event, including a campus walk for all attendees and organizing a math-contest for them. Students listened to talks about math and music which was the focus of this year’s event and built flute-like instruments and performed calculations during the afternoon workshop by utilizing appropriate mathematical and physical principles. Overall this was a very successful event and students were very engaged and excited. In fact, many of them expressed their desire to return to the program next year.

The agenda for the day was as follows:

10am – 10:30 am

Welcome by Chair + breakfast + internet setup

10:30 – 11:30 am

Math & Music talk by Dr. Denis Sheeran

11:30 – 12:00 pm

Math Jeopardy – Math Ambassadors 30 mins

12:00 – 12:30 pm

Lunch Break

12:30 – 1:00 pm

Campus walk

1:00 – 2:30 pm

Math and Music Workshop by Dr. Bogdan Nita

2:30 – 2:50 pm

Awards and certificates

2:50 – 3:00 pm

Group picture

The Research Committee grounds this award in three areas of AMTE’s work:

1. To promote improving , which is inextricably bound to a commitment towards more effective and socially just education systems.
2. To strengthen the while supporting our members to understand how issues of social and racial justice undergird all of our work.��
3. To realize that the affect teaching and learning and know about and are committed to their critical roles as advocates for every student.

Wiley’s poster is titled “Zero Divisor Graphs of Certain Matrices”, supervised by Dr. Aihua Li from the Department of Mathematics. His research is sponsored by a CSAM Summer Undergraduate Research grant. Sarah’s poster is titled “Spanning Trees of Random Cubic Graphs with Many Leaves”, supervised by Dr. Deepak Bal from the Department of Mathematics.

Learn more about the .

The faculty team includes Dr. Mika Munakata��(Mathematics Department),��Dr. Emily Klein��(Teaching and Learning), and Dr. Monica Taylor (Educational Foundations), with Colette Killian as project manager.

The ����vlog Wipro Science Education Fellowship (SEF) is a professional development program designed to support experienced K–12 science teachers as teacher leaders within their districts.��The program was originally developed by UMass Boston and was implemented in similar ways across seven universities. The program works with teachers of various disciplines and grade levels from five high-need school districts. It is funded by Wipro Limited, a global information technology and consulting corporation with a vested interest in public education in both India and the US. The  $561,630 funded for Phase 3 will allow the program to expand its reach to more teachers, additional disciplines, and new districts, all with the goal of creating sustainable structures for teacher leadership within districts.

This section of Supplemental Instruction is for students of any level of Spanish proficiency who would like the option to interact in Spanish. Information about registering for special sections of bilingual Precalculus to be offered in Fall 2022 will be posted soon. All are welcome!

Learn more about these offerings in the video below.

https://youtu.be/r1n2P2Em5lI