AOK Section Meeting 2009 Banquet Speech

Arkansas-Oklahoma-Kansas - 2009 Section Meeting

Keynote Speaker

Corinne Manogue - Oregon State University

Bridging the Gap Between Mathematics & Physics

Students often have trouble "bridging the gap" between the presentations of mathematics in mathematics courses and the ways in which they are expected to use this same mathematics in physics courses. In education research at Oregon State University, we have discovered radical differences in the ways in which mathematicians and physicists think about such basic concepts as functions and vectors. I will discuss these differences and their implications for what and how we teach. One specific suggestion to help students bridge the gap is to use an approach which emphasizes geometric visualization over algebraic manipulation of cookbook formulas.

Bio: Corinne Manogue (corinne@physics.oregonstate.edu) received her AB in Mathematics and Physics from Mount Holyoke College in 1977 and her PhD in Physics from the University of Texas in 1984. She did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Durham (England), and in India. She is now Professor of Physics at Oregon State University and Director of the Paradigms in Physics curriculum reform project (\texttt{http://physics.oregonstate.edu/portfolioswiki}). Her traditional research is in quantum gravity. She continues to be amazed and gladdened to find herself a physicist and wants as many of her students as possible to have the same opportunity.