Ontario Colleges Mathematics Association

							25th Ontario Colleges Mathematics Association Conference
Lynda Graham
Talisman Lodge, May 25 – 27, 2005

   103 Students Saved! Mohawk College

           - Mohawk’s attrition rate was 42.6% in 2003 and has dropped in 2004 by
   11% to 31% .
           - Math department set up a pilot project to reduce attrition in math courses.
           - Their initiatives included student reflections on tests, faculty phone/email
   contact with failing students, drop-in tutorials led by faculty, strongest professors
   teach first year students and Lyrx software (similar concept to TLM)
           - For the data, measured class sizes, attendance, professors as well as, time
   and locations of tests
           - Impact on reduced attrition rate were:
                   - contacting students who did not write test by email
                   - drop-in tutorials by faculty (U. of W. math students not as good for
                   technology students)
                   - reflections by students on their grades after Test 1 (5th week); have
                   students acknowledge their grade, accept responsibility and recognize
                   help available
                   - feedback to students , one quiz per week
                   - attendance
           - 4 types of students: independent learners (pass but do not attend), passers
   (who attend), heart breakers (who attend but fail, poor math skills), failures (do not
   attend and not the basic skills)
           - counselled students to consider Pretech math course or GAS to improve
   math skills.
           - did attitudinal survey (Schau 2002 Attitudinal Survey): no difference in
   results with Business or Technology students, 70% think math is difficult, 95% value
   math, 90% think they can do math
           - What needs to be addressed? Students who believe math is difficult and
   that there is no difference in student attitude to math between pre and post scores.


    Applied Cryptography: The Science of Secrecy       Victor Ralevich, Sheridan
An exploration of the mathematical aspects for classical and modern cryptography
algorithms and their role in computer network secure communication.
           - very fascinating
           - classical ciphers: one to one substitution so 26! possibilities.
           - code can be broken, if you look at the most frequently used letter and that
           would likely be “e” as the most frequent use of letters are in this order:
           etaonirs then hdlucmpfy. Look for letters that are likely vowels
           - polyalphabetic ciphers: one letter to several different letters but there are
           still some patterns
           - telegraph
       - bit level ciphers: stream ciphers(software) and block ciphers (most widely
       used today)
       - block ciphers: based on prime factoring of large integers
       - largest prime number has 7,816,230 digits (kept secret by military)
       - key now has 231 digits but hacks keep breaking them
       - weakest point is the random number generator as the creators do not know
       enough math


On-Line Math     Henry Ferber

- use TLM, the software we have at Sheridan for high school math
- uses it for only on-line learning
 - see attached notes for more information


Birds of a Feather

       - learned from various colleges teachers about uses of MathCAD,
    mathematics riddles for the classroom and unique calculator


Northern College ; Student Retention and Success Strategies
- lowest attrition rate in Ontario: 9.95% Fall 1999, now 0.7% Fall 2004
- majority of students are adult learners
- student Success Centre situated in the entrance to the Library
- faculty assigned to Student Success Centre (25 to 30 hours a week)
- study skills workshops
- faculty-lead tutorials
- study group formation
- peer tutors or community tutors
- for failures, tutoring throughout the summer to write a challenge exam at end of
    Aug.
- Individual Learning Plan after the 3 days 14, 29 and 44
- very much a nurturing college- a group effort but a very small college
- -
Statistics Course Discussion

-   At Durham College, 2 Statistics courses in Technology
-   A source for Ontario Socio-Economic Data from National Post and the Report
    from C.D. Howe Institute Ranking Schools at
    http://www.cdhowe.org/english/publications/policystudy_40.html
    and introduction and conclusions are available free as a PDF download at
    http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/policystudy_40.pdf
The Shock of the New: Non Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art

-   the 20th Century ushered in revolutionary approaches to art which can be
    associated with the writings of Poincare, Einstein and Freud.
-   Freud with his “dream space” is akin to the 4th dimension of time-space by
    Einstein
-   Modern art, such as Picasso, show this attempt to draw time-space.
-   see http://cs.unm.edu/~joel/NonEuclid/
-   http://math.mohawkcollege.ca/kezys/stc/STCWEB.html