Dr. Linda Griffith has made it her mission to help public school teachers become better at teaching math and science.
That may be one of the reasons Texas Instruments selected her as one of only two they would sponsor to attend an international conference on mathematics education.
Griffith, director of the Arkansas Center for Mathematics Education and a professor at UCA, attended the weeklong conference in Copenhagen, Denmark last month.
At the conference, Griffith presented a paper on the impact of technology on the teaching of algebra. During her more than two decade tenure at the university, Griffith has worked to incorporate technology into her curriculum. She has also encouraged public school teachers to use technology in the classroom.
?We want teachers to not only teach about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, but also teach about exploring things in multiple ways,? she said.
One technique Griffith demonstrated at the conference was charting math problems on a graphing calculator.
?Using the calculators, students can actually chart out the different speeds of, say, two trains,? she said. ?The visual representation makes students more persistent in finding solutions.?
In addition to attending the international conference, this summer Griffith was busy working with grant projects including the Arkansas Mathematics and Science Professional Development Institute. More than 400 public school teachers were invited to the UCA campus in late July to participate in the institute.
The Arkansas Center for Mathematics Education has already been funded to host the institute again next summer.
-Jennifer Boyett
