Feb. 24, 2010

DWU mathematics professor publishes article

MITCHELL — Michael Catalano, professor of mathematics at Dakota Wesleyan University, recently authored his second article for “Numeracy: Advancing Education in Quantitative Literacy,” a journal published in an online format by the National Numeracy Network.

The title of the article is “College Algebra in Context: A Project Incorporating Social Issues.”

The article describes the development of “Algebra: Modeling Our World,” a college algebra text written by Catalano that is currently used at DWU. The text incorporates a variety of real-world examples, especially those related to social issues like hunger, poverty, energy and the environment.

“My goal in developing the text was to help students see the relevance of algebra to social issues and give them practice in using algebra to model real-world situations,” Catalano said.

Catalano obtained a grant from the National Science Foundation to assist in his work and acquire a mobile laptop computer laboratory for use in teaching the course.

“I wrote the article at the request of one of the editors of the National Numeracy Network Journal,” he said. “We met at a conference and he thought such an article would be of interest to his readership and would make our work here at DWU known to a wider audience. There has also been a lot of discussion within the mathematics community on how to improve student learning in college algebra courses, and I hope this article will contribute to that discussion.”

Catalano has been a faculty member at DWU since 1992.

The most current issue of the journal may be found by going to: http://services.bepress.com/numeracy/