This summer, two Taylor Math professors, Dr. Colgan and Dr. Eggleton, had the opportunity to speak at ACMS. ACMS is the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences and is a bi-yearly conference that takes place to help encourage and promote faith integration in both teaching and work for people in the mathematical sciences. It was founded in 1977 as a network of Christian mathematicians who wanted to encourage people in faith integration. Dr. Colgan and Dr. Eggleton talked in sessions at the conference this year, and Dr. Eggleton also submitted an article to be reviewed for publication in the proceedings from the conference.
Dr. Colgan’s session was about Fun Ways to Engage Students with Active Learning. During the talk, he discussed fun, low-tech ways to engage students. It was mostly focused on activities related to calculus and precalculus topics. Some of the activities he shared were the Rock-Paper-Scissors game, max/min Candy Dish, Spaghetti tangents, Hangman words, Which One Doesn’t Belong, and Group Guessing games. Dr. Colgan really emphasized how important it is to add motivation to lessons and promote working together in groups.
Dr. Eggleton’s session was titled Authentic Faith in Practice: Meaningful Integration Within the Mathematics Classroom. It was focused on answering the questions: How do we genuinely integrate this into our courses? And how do we help our students come to know this Truth more genuinely? Dr. Eggleton has 25 years of experience integrating faith in mathematics classes. In his talk, he emphasized practical suggestions on how to integrate and also provided research into the faith development of adults. Also, after the conference, he submitted an article titled Stepping Out of the Boat: Fostering Active Faith in the Mathematics Classroom. He submitted it to be reviewed for publication. It argues that faith integration in postsecondary mathematics should be more than just an afterthought. It needs to start to include active discipleship, mentoring, and community formation. When these things are put in place in the classroom, it helps give students tools to tackle not only their schoolwork but also daily trials. His main point is that mathematical classrooms can be a very meaningful space for spiritual formation. It was a very meaningful and helpful conference, and it was such an amazing opportunity for two of our own math professors to be able to share. Taylor really cares about how faith is integrated in the classroom, and both talks show that professors also care and pour a lot of thought into the how.
