Results from Prior NSF Support
The Math Forum, REC-9618223, $971,300, March 1999 to date.
The Math Forum began in January of 1996 as a proof-of-concept grant from the
NSF to extend the work of the Geometry Forum into other areas of mathematics
and to investigate the viability of a virtual center for mathematics
education on the Internet. The Math Forum has developed a vast Web site [4]
that receives over a million hits a week, with mentored user services such
as Ask Dr. Math and Problems of the Week at various levels in which hundreds
of students participate each day.
From the Forum home page you can now search or browse the Internet
Mathematics Library [5], which contains annotated entries of hand-selected
resources combined with cataloguing features based on American Mathematical
Society categories, extending its value far beyond what is available from
indexing agents such as AltaVista or Internet catalogues like Yahoo.
The Forum has examined and cooperated with attempts by GEM and others to
develop metadata standards that allow meaningful data exchange across
disparate areas of the Web. The PI is a member of the recently formed Math
Metadata Working Group, whose goal is to develop draft metadata standards
for the field of mathematics and for mathematics education.
The Math Forum is also publishing the peer-reviewed Journal of Online
Mathematics and its Applications (JOMA). The editor is Ladnor Geissinger of
the University of North Carolina and the PI is Gerald Porter of the
University of Pennsylvania. The first issue is expected in the summer of
1999. JOMA is an outgrowth of the need of the Mid-Atlantic Consortium for
Mathematics and Its Applications Across the Curriculum (MACMATC) project [6]
to disseminate the best of the Internet curriculum modules developed by that
project. The MathWright project [7] of the Institute for Academic Technology
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is also interested in
submitting material developed under its aegis, and a number of other
NSF-funded projects have material to contribute.
In addition, the Math Forum is a partner in the ESCOT project [1],
coordinating teams of teachers, software developers, and curriculum
disseminators in developing component software and integrating it into
activities designed to fill gaps in the curriculum. Our contribution to this
project involves facilitation of discussions between educators and
programmers about component development.
The Math Forum has provided many different ways for people to interact with
one another, with different points of access for people of varied strengths
and needs. Community-building is an important part of Forum activities: the
Math Forum represents a vision about the possibilities for an Internet
community that extends the collegiality found in schools, classrooms, or the
workplace. Evaluation of the Forum is used in program design, development,
and facilitation, and provides an assessment of impact.
Publications:
The Math Forum Web site is a 600,000 page online publication. [4]
[8] Renninger, K. A., Weimar, S. A. & Klotz, E. A. (1998). Teachers and
students investigating and communicating about geometry: The Math
Forum. In R. Lehrer & D. Chazan (Eds.) Designing learning
environments for developing understanding of geometry and
space (pp. 465-487). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[9] Renninger, K. A. & Shumar, W. (1998). Why and how students
work with The Math Forumıs Problem(s) of the Week: Implications for
design. In A. S. Bruckman, M. Guzdial, J. L. Kolodner, and A. Ram
(Eds.), Proceedings of ICLS 98 (pp. 348-350). Charlottesville, VA: AACE.
[10] Renninger, K. A. & Shumar, W. (Eds.) (In preparation). Building virtual
communities. New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Math Forum is a research and educational enterprise of the Drexel School of Education.