By DUE Point Lead Editor, Audrey Malagon, Virginia Wesleyan University

DUE Point blog has featured several projects affiliated with the NSF-funded SUMMIT-P project focused on how mathematics curriculum can best support students’ needs in partner disciplines, including business. In this post, Mike May of St. Louis University tells us about the Business College Algebra subproject of SUMMIT-P and the outcomes of the team’s work.

1. How did you get involved with the SUMMIT-P Project?

The SUMMIT-P Consortium was looking for institutions willing to work on math with partner disciplines including science and business. The consortium’s goals aligned with what I was already doing with business applications in my classes and how I was planning to extend that work to higher level math classes.

2. What were some of the student learning tools you developed as part of this project? 

We knew that math faculty commonly use tools like GeoGebra and Desmos to depict functions and relations, both as a whole and at certain points in the relation or function. We found that business faculty were less familiar with these tools, even though they could be especially useful for visualization of mathematical concepts in those classes as well. So, we developed applets in Geogebra (found here) and other online tools to help with the visualization of mathematical concepts in business applications. For example, one of our most successful tools uses GeoGebra to minimize risk and maximize return on an investment portfolio. Business faculty have shared positive feedback about the impact these tools have had in their classrooms.

3. Give us an example of how you’re using other tools to support understanding of mathematical concepts that apply to business.

The function for the payment on a loan is a function of four variables: principal, rate, payments per year, and years. When we add in payment, it is a relation of five variables: three that we call parameters, one input, and one output. By using Excel’s Goal Seek tool, we can change the role of the variables.  I might want to know the payment on a particular loan.  I also might want to know the loan size that I can afford.  I may also want to find the rate of an offer where the payment is specified.

4. How have students responded to math with more business context?

The simplest answer is that I no longer get the question from students asking why they need to know these mathematical concepts! There are enough students pointing out how they are seeing the same concepts we teach in mathematics in their business courses as well.

5. What have you learned so far in this project? What’s the biggest change/adjustment you’ve had to make?

When the grant started, we had planned to focus on more advanced math for business students.  At the beginning of the grant, we formed a committee including business faculty and they unanimously said we should look at math below the level of calculus. This required a fast reworking of our plan to focus on materials with business applications suitable for a college algebra class.

6. SUMMIT-P was a large project involving several institutions. How has the collaboration among institutions benefited your project?

When partner discipline faculty asked us to move in a different direction from the one we had planned (looking at college algebra rather than higher math), we reached out to other institutions for guidance. We were able to visit VCU and utilize their college algebra course as the starting point for our business-flavored college algebra. On the flip side, Ferris State borrowed some of the material we had developed for teaching the use of Excel.

7. How have you ensured that your work can be utilized by mathematics teachers and learners beyond your campus?

We spent a lot of time thinking about how to institutionalize our work.  On the business side, that meant making processes for things like skills tests easy enough to use outside the grant.  On the math side, it meant ensuring the material was used by instructors who are not involved with the grant.  We have products for business-flavored college algebra and business calculus that are ready to be used at other institutions. You can find some of our work here:

Visualization applets: https://www.geogebra.org/m/ermnyx9g

College algebra materials: https://mathstat.slu.edu/~may/ModelingWithExcel/index.html

Calculus materials: https://mathstat.slu.edu/~may/ExcelCalculus/ExcelCalculus.html

Learn more about NSF DUE 162522

Full Project Name: Collaborative Research: A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships (SUMMIT-P)

Abstract: https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1625222

Project Contact: Michael May, PI; maymk@slu.edu