Our college president, Dr. Antonio P=E9rez, agreed to match the $5,000
provided by the Berk Foundation (David and Minnie Berk Foundation, 1101
Stewart Avenue, Garden City, NY, NY 11530) with an equal amount of
college funding. Because of this leveraging of the Berk support, we
were able to purchase a total of $10,000 worth of equipment for the
project (112 Texas Instrument TI-83 graphing calculators plus two TI
Calculator View screens for classroom display - half with Berk funds
and half from College funds). =20
During the Spring 1998 semester which has just ended, we lent out 87
of these calculators to three sections of Precalculus (MAT 206), and
used the remainder of calculators on an interim basis to loan to
students in our Math Lab. Thus far, we have gotten back from students
99 of the 112 calculators (about 90%), and are taking steps to secure
the remainder by re-contacting students and reminding them that their
ability to re-register, use the library, get a transcript, etc. is
blocked (see attached contract) until their calculators are returned.
Here are some comments from participating instructors:
"The TI-83 graphics calculator was used to enhance my teaching of my
pre-calculus course. The fact that students were able to take the
calculators home was an additional advantage in the sense that they
learned a variety of features much faster."
"The use of the calculator proved to be very stimulating to the
students. Their interest in the course was tremendously improved."
"Knowing that the students had access to graphing calculators at home
allowed me to assign more complex and realistic reinforcement exercises
than I would otherwise have been able to. In addition, classroom time
could be better focused towards exploring concepts, given that the
students were better equipped to investigate graphical properties of
functions both in class and at home."
Does anyone have any information as to additional private foundations
that might fund comparable projects in mathematics?=20
=20
=20
Geoffrey Akst
Mathematics Department
Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street
NY, NY 10007
(v) 212/346-8530, -8531, -8532
(f) 212/346-8550
(e) akst@idt.net
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