Project MINDSET: Innovative Education

By Kenneth Chelst, Thomas Edwards, Robert Young, Karen Keene and David Royster

OR/MS Today August 2008

Jamie-Leigh Csizmar

Professor Shilepsky

Math 308

Dec. 8, 2008

Imagine

*A world in which college freshmen know and understand multi-step problem solving to be the norm

*A time when word problems are considered to be no problem

*Students understand sensitivity as something to be analyzed and not just a personal characteristic

This is the world that Project MINDSET is trying to create!

What is Project MINDSET

Project MINDSET is a project designed to develop, implement and evaluate a two-semester course for high school seniors based on the mathematics of operations research and industrial engineering

MINDSET stands for Mathematics Instruction using Decision Science and Engineering Tools

Partner Universities working on it right now are North Carolina State University, Wayne State University, and University of North Carolina- Charlotte

Why?Two forces cause need for more proficient math courses in

high school

1) The minimum state standards needed to obtain a high school diploma

Many are trying to implement a four year math requirement to graduate and a math course is needed that is relatable to students

2) State university admission standards or expectations to be competitive

A problem solving approach to math will better prepare students for college level courses

The course will be designed to address the national deficiency in mathematics

EX) On the 1996 and 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 24 percent of American 12th-grade students were able to correctly solve a multi-step problem involving multiple operations.

An army bus holds 36 soldiers. If 1,128 soldiers are being bussed to their training site, how many buses are needed?

23% answered correctly while 29% answered with “31 remainder 12”

Problem lies in Multi-step problem solving and interpretation of results, which is not being properly addressed at the current time

How to be Successful

*Most important – the teachers who implement it

Training in delivering the text and altering pedagogical strategies

*Project committee will create a web-based teacher support system allowing for all teachers participating to have a community to reference

will supply lectures, quizzes, FAQ’s

*Traveling Help Team – a “rapid response” group that will go to classrooms to help both teachers and students

Challenges

*Each state has different standards and so the project has to be tailored in a way that makes it easily adaptable to all sorts of standards

Article suggests beginning with a mathematics professor to teach the teaching strategy

They can teach their students about it and methods to use and then within 5 years 25,000 students can be

learning OR/IE in high school!

Education courses taught in college will reach 20 new high school teachers who can teach two sections, or 50 students per year. Five schools of education in your state teach 100 new teachers a year, who in turn teach 5,000 more students = 25,000 in 5 years

Project MINDSET would reach home with both college bound and non-college bound students because of its real world contexts

It will bring a wide range of applicable examples to students that may have been lacking in other classes

Is it the right time to implement this in your school?