To read the full article, please visit the Poughkeepsie Journal website.

Ms. Jackson a graduate admission professional whose experience runs the gamut from marketing, recruiting, event coordination, project management, and strategic planning. She is a tireless supporter of higher education and a strong advocate for fostering all aspects of diversity on the college campus and in the greater community. Ms. Jackson previously worked at Marist College as the Associate Director of Admission for the Office of Graduate & Adult Enrollment.  In this position, she jointly authored several partnership agreements with national organizations to better facilitate the enrollment of underrepresented populations, and she played an active role in researching, designing, and implementing recruitment strategies to help expand the college’s visibility and ensure that enrollment targets were met.

Originally from Gay, Georgia, Ms. Jackson earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology & Psychology from Savannah State University where she graduated with Magna Cum Laude honors. She also holds a Master’s degree in Counseling from Argosy University-Atlanta.

In an effort to achieve her professional pursuits Ms. Jackson relocated to Dutchess County, New York in 2005.  Since that time, she has been highly involved in her local community; she has personally logged over 400 hours of community service and serves as the Vice President/Program Chair of the Iota Alpha Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.  Ms. Jackson is the receipt of the 2010 the Dutchess County 40 Under 40 Mover & Shaker Award, a distinguished award is granted to 40 Dutchess County residents under 40 years of age, who exemplify the spirit of progressiveness and who have made significant contributions to their professions and communities, which have shaped their communities in ways that have positioned them to become better places to do business and live.

Bard College is thrilled to welcome such a distinguished and experienced professional to the Master of Arts in Teaching Program.  Ms. Jackson will be stepping into the role previously held by Amber Hinds, who initiated the recruitment of the MAT’s inaugural class on the Delano, California campus and set records for numbers of accepted and enrolled students on both New York campuses.  In the spring of 2010, following the close of the recruiting cycle, Ms. Hinds left the MAT to be a stay-at-home mother to her then nine month old daughter.  Since that time, Ms. Hinds has continued to play an active role in the MAT on a consulting basis.  Bard College was disappointed to loose Ms. Hinds as it’s Director of Recruitment, but could not have found a better person to fill her shoes.

Questions about the MAT and admissions may be directed to:
Patricia Jackson
Director of Recruiting
Master of Arts in Teaching
Bard College
Shafer House, Room 303
P.O. Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000

Phone: 845-758-7151
Fax: 845-758-7149
pjackson@bard.edu

La Voz is a monthly bilingual publication sponsored by the Master of Arts in Teaching at Bard College.  Issues are distributed in Spanish in the Hudson Valley, and in Spanish and English in California’s Central Valley.  La Voz may be read online via the Bard College website.

Talk Teaching with Bard

Not sure if teaching is right for you?  Wondering if Bard’s program is the path you should take to certification?

Visit our Annandale-on-Hudson or Delano campus at your convenience the week of April 5, 2010 between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm local time for one-on-one advisement.  There’s no group information session, just individual faculty advisement, admission counseling, and campus tours, so you can ask the questions  important to you and visit campus when it works for you.

As an added bonus, students who complete their admission application by midnight Friday, April 9, 2010 will have the application fee waived.*

Though prospective students are welcome to walk-in, appointments are strongly encouraged to ensure faculty and tour availability.  To make an appointment or for additional information please contact:

Annandale-on-Hudson Open House Week
Amber Hinds
Director of Recruiting
845-758-7151
mat@bard.edu

Delano Open House Week
Tammy Ketelhut
California Program Administrator
661-454-3012
matca@bard.edu

*Application fee can be waived for individuals who have not already paid.  Unfortunately, Bard College is unable to refund application fees that have already been paid, as they go directly to the application processing service, Embark.

Editor’s Note: The MAT Program at Bard College requires students in each discipline to complete a classroom research project. These serve to reveal how apprentice teachers pose and respond to daunting questions directly connected with their experiences in the public schools. The following article is a continuation of those published in the fall 2009 issue of the MAT magazine Field Notes and provides a close look at the kind of classroom research the program requires.

More than Words: Exploring the Disconnect between Verbal and Written Communication in Mathematics

By Kimberly Corum

When formalizing a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, what are the difficulties that arise as students attempt to translate their ideas from a visual/verbal context into a written context?

Motivated by my interactions with students who are working with an experimental curriculum developed by the Algebra Project, I have observed many students who are able to articulate their thinking very clearly in conversation, yet are unable to effectively communicate their thinking through writing. The design of this experimental curriculum is such that students are encouraged to explore and experiment with a variety of topics in Euclidean and Non-Euclidean geometry and to effectively and clearly communicate their findings.

With the amount of existing research that presents the benefits of non-traditional forms of assessment, I feel that incorporating writing into a mathematics classroom is one form of assessment that allows students to approach mathematics in a manner that encourages and values the process of mathematical thinking just as highly as the end result. The question that guides my research is: “When formalizing a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, what are the difficulties that arise as my students attempt to translate their ideas from a visual/verbal context into a written context?” The intent of this research is not to necessarily generate a solution to remedy the disconnect between verbal and written thought. Instead, its aim is to acknowledge that this disconnect exists and to hopefully reframe this disconnect within the context of student preference and facility.

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School (FLHFHS) is located in the South Bronx and was one of the first small high schools in the area. The school is separated into two divisions: Division I (ninth and tenth grade) and Division II (eleventh and twelfth grade). Students in Division II are currently studying Functions and Geometry, respectively.  I am focusing my research on the twelfth grade Geometry class during their Coordinates, Length, Area, Pythagoras unit.

The Coordinates, Length, Area, Pythagoras (CLAP) unit lasted a total of three weeks and consisted of four separate lessons. The unit’s culminating assessment was student-led proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. Each lesson was structured with a packet that guided students through the discovery activities and included several dialogues that contextualized the discovery work into a conventional mathematics discussion.

The lessons leading up to CLAP 4 covered coordinate systems, rectangular coordinates, and determining the area of rectangles and triangles. All of these topics were used in introducing and deriving proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. On the first day of CLAP 4, the Pythagorean Theorem was presented to the class using a 3-4-5 right triangle.  Using area and dissection, students were able to determine the hypotenuse of the given right triangle. This specific case was then generalized into a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.

The second day of CLAP 4 was focused on exploring multiple proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. Students worked in small groups to investigate and understand a second proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. Each group was provided with a different proof of the Pythagorean Theorem and was expected to present this proof to the entire class.  Each proof was some sort of dissection proof and involved area or the properties of figures, both topics the students are familiar with. The final day of CLAP 4 was spent with the students presenting their assigned proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.

My focus group for this study was Block B. Of this group of students, I selected eight students in pairs, and of those, seven were able to take part in the interview process.  For the first interview, I removed my interviewees from class in groups of two and completed a semi-structured interview. I asked my students to explain how they could prove the Pythagorean Theorem.  Following the interview, the students were given time to formalize what they discussed in a piece of writing.

The follow-up interview was much more structured than the first.  Students were again interviewed in the same groups of two. The questions were designed based on the comparison between the students’ verbal explanation of their proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem and their formal written proofs. Questions were designed in a manner that encouraged students to be reflective about their thought process and their work. During the course of the second interview, the students were presented with a transcript of the first interview along with the written proofs they completed following the first interview.  I asked students to compare their responses and also consider questions about the role of writing in a mathematics classroom.

I chose students based on my classroom observations throughout the course of my student teaching placement. I wanted to interview a range of students—from students who rarely speak in class to those who are very vocal, from students who write the bare minimum to those who write regularly and frequently. In pairing students, I wanted to ensure that the students I interviewed could work well together and that neither student would be lost in the discussion.

Of the seven students I interviewed, there was a marked difference between the clarity of the students’ verbal and written proofs. One of the students presented a much more convincing verbal proof than written, whereas three presented stronger written proofs. For two of the students, there was little discrepancy between their written and verbal proofs and both were equally convincing, while for another student, both the verbal and the written proof indicated a struggle in her understanding of the structure of the proof.

Of the seven students I interviewed, I was only able to meet with five for my follow-up interview. Of these five students, only one expressed a preference for communicating verbally. When asked why his written proof was so much shorter and lacked the level of detail he provided in his verbal proof, the student stated that he “just wanted to get this done.”  After comparing his two proofs, he noted that he spoke a lot more than he wrote, however, he did not notice any discrepancy between the two. He completely omitted the description of the angles that he provided during the interview.  When asked about the difference between the two proofs, the student claimed that he “didn’t know how to put his thoughts down on paper.”

Another student explained that she prefered writing because it allows her to express herself more. She is more comfortable with writing because she feels that she is better able to explain what she is trying to say. A different student made a similar claim, arguing that writing gives her more time to think. When observing the two proofs side-by-side, this student noted, “the stuff I wrote explains more than what I said.” The last student I interviewed also preferred writing because she is able to put in more details.

The nature of this research has left me with more questions than answers.  As anticipated, there was a significant discrepancy between my students’ comfort and consistency in communicating their thinking verbally versus through writing. When I first began planning my research, my initial assumption was that students would be more comfortable with verbal communication. Yet, over the course of my interviews, I only encountered one student who actively preferred speaking over writing. In fact, most of the students I interviewed, at best, were able to express themselves verbally, but had a strong preference for writing.

I envisioned my students experience during the first interview would provide them with a type of verbal “pre-write.” My assumption that students are more comfortable expressing themselves verbally was based in this idea that there is a certain formality that exists in written work that might not be as prevalent in a conversation.  This sense of formality was reinforced in the reasons that my students provided for their preference to write. Writing provided them with more time to think, allowed them to include more details, and was something they could edit or revise. This left me with the question, what does it mean to write?  How would activities such as free writing and journaling help my students to think of writing as a practice that extends beyond formal papers? Consequently, how would my findings and the experiences of my students changed if my interview process included time for pre-writing prior to the initial interview?

I also question how my decision to use proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem as my vehicle for collecting my data impacted the results of my research. The proofs that the students worked on in small groups were very complicated and required them to synthesize ideas and understandings from the entire semester in order to create a convincing proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.  I think that there was a lack of confidence in their thinking that might have impacted their willingness to talk freely during the initial interview. How would my findings have differed if the students had more time to work through the different proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem prior to the interview or if I interviewed the students about a topic that they were more comfortable with discussing?

Upon the conclusion of my research, I am still left with this question of “why?”  Why are some students more inclined to explain their reasoning verbally than in writing?  I feel that this research project is the catalyst for a number of different opportunities for further research. While incorporating writing into a mathematics classroom is a difficult task, it is something that I feel is worthwhile and necessary. Becoming a good writer is a trait that should be encouraged and fostered in every classroom, regardless of discipline.  In order for this approach to be effective, a classroom culture that values writing in all forms must be established at the beginning of the school year. I hope to take my findings and the further questions that spawned from this research and create a classroom that encourages and fosters students to become mathematicians and writers.

Kimberly Corum earned her Master of Arts in Teaching degree at Bard College in the mathematics discipline in June 2009.

The anthology will feature new and previously published work from over 40 writers.  Among the book’s contributors are Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, Jason Biggs (of American Pie), J. Robert Lennon, Alicia Ostriker, Paul Lisicky, Louise de Salvo, Donna Steiner, Joe Weil, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Lee Klein, Susanne Antonetta, James Richardson, Susan Fox Rogers, Gerald Stern, JC Todd, BJ Ward, and Sung J. Woo.

What’s Your Exit? will be comprised of contemporary literary fiction, memoir, and poetry about, inspired by, and representative of the Garden State.  Themes of family, friendship, travel, culture, sexuality, love, fear, violence, nostalgia, and longing populate the anthology, which features writers and styles as eclectic and beautiful, and as unnerving and mysterious and bold as the place that unites them in this work.

An index in the back of the anthology will list the collected works by Parkway and Turnpike exits, an homage to the traditional way Jersey folk identify and relate to one another—the simple but loaded inquiry, “What exit?”

“We want What’s Your Exit? to be our gift to New Jersey,” said Vallese.  After developing their vision for the anthology, Beale and Vallese sought a New Jersey-based publisher equally enthusiastic about the scope of the project.

Vallese is a 2004 graduate of Bard College and a 2005 graduate of the Master of Arts in Teaching, literature discipline.  He is currently teaching at New York University.

For more information on What’s Your Exit?, please visit the book’s webpage: http://nj.wordriot.org/.

MAT staff spent the day organizing student files and preparing them for faculty review.  “We have a large number of high-caliber applicants this year,” said Cecilia Maple, Program Administrator and Coordinator of Admission and Professional Certification.  “It’s already looking like the class of 2011 will be an excellent group.”  Faculty have also been busy reviewing student files and are impressed with the quality of applicants.  “The literature faculty has nearly completed their review of literature applicants and are very excited with the quality, as well,” said Ms. Maple.

Prospective students who submitted their applications by March 1st can expect a decision as early as next week.  Applications for the New York Campuses are being accepted through April 30, 2010, as space allows.  “Despite the large number of applications currently being reviewed, we expect to have a number of spots remaining in each disciple, and some fellowships still available, in the upcoming weeks,” Ms. Maple remarked.  “Interested students are encouraged to continue to submit applications and supplementary materials through the review period.”

For questions about applying to the MAT, please contact Cecilia Maple or Amber Hinds at mat@bard.edu or call 1-800-460-3243.

To start an application now go to www.bard.edu/mat/apply.  Application requirements can be reviewed in the admission section of our website.

To visit our YouTube channel, please go to http://www.youtube.com/user/BardMAT.  Click the “Subscribe” button to stay up-to-date as videos are added.

The Paramount Bard video can be watched here.

PRESS RELEASE THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL 2/16/2010:  Pathbreaking research by History Master Cara Hyson, “The Lost Plebiscite: It’s still 1918 in Iraq,” has been published in the February 15 issue of American Diplomacy.

While researching her master’s thesis at Bard College (on T.E. Lawrence’s recently discovered map of the Middle East and its implications for Iraq) Hyson discovered that historians have overlooked and/or misinterpreted a 1918 report that foreshadows the complexity of creating a stable government in Iraq. Following World War I, British Civil Commissioner Arnold Wilson was asked by his government to survey local leaders in the former Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul about the type of government they wanted in the newly formed Iraq. At the time, Gertrude Bell served as Oriental Secretary. She, along with T.E. Lawrence, was actively involved in the negotiations to create the modern Middle East.

Wilson found, in a nutshell, that the representatives of three ethnically and religiously diverse regions agreed to temporary, neutral British rule since none of the local rulers in each region would accept rule from another. Although these findings were published in 1931 in the book, Mesopotamia 1917-1920: A Clash of Loyalties: A Personal and Historical Record, Wilson’s biographer, John Marlowe, and subsequently Bell’s biographer, H. V. F. Winstone, and David Fromkin, citing Winstone, in his well-known book A Peace to End all Peace, only focus on the final determination of the preference for British rule. By failing to return to the original source, which outlines the initial conflicts between the ethnic groups in Iraq, those outside the nation have rarely fully understood the internal conflicts and fragile bonds holding the nation together.

Hyson found Wilson’s personal records after first reading of the plebiscite in Fromkin’s book and following the citations back to Wilson. “It’s remarkable that the results of this plebiscite have remained buried all these years,” said Hyson.

For additional information on all Lawrenceville School news, please contact Lisa M. Gillard Hanson, director of public relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.

SOURCE:http://www.lawrenceville.org/about/news/news_detail.asp?id=12F0E

READ HYSON’S ARTICLE: http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2010/0103/comm/hyson_pleb.html