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The Mentoring Critical Transition Points (MCTP) project catalyzes student success by providing targeted mentoring during significant academic transitions. Key lessons learned emphasize the importance of administrative and departmental support in navigating complex bureaucratic hurdles. The project inspired students and potentially motivated faculty, while also facilitating opportunities like the Honeywell internship. Through modules on mathematical biology and algorithmic problem-solving, students engage with real-world applications, enhancing their learning experience and preparing them for future challenges in mathematics and related fields.
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Overview MCTP project • Mentoring students through Critical Transition Points. • Lessons Learned. • Benefits.
Lessons Learned! • Administrative support is crucial! • Secretarial support. • W9s, waivers, created reqs, reserving rooms, reviewing applications, details all over the place! • Departmental support… • Two differing unyielding bureaucracies! • FIND ADVOCATES! • BELIEVE IN THE PROJECT!!
Benefits • Students truly touched and inspired. • Other faculty may be motivated. • Honeywell internship. • Robotics. • AMP grant. • I get challenged by the best and brightest students!
MCTP modules • Mathematical Biology. • Disease vectors • Cancer growth • Bone growth • 3d simulations and animations using maple • Abstract algebra applied to the real world. • Algorithmic solutions to mathematical problems.
Solving math problems Algorithmically MCTP Module Roberto Ribas
Why Algorithmns? • Many important mathematics problems can ONLY be solved with algorithms. • Many problems are easier to solve with algorithms than with “regular” math. • Algorithms can verify a solution found traditionally
Only with Algorithms • Largest prime number • Dr. Curtis Cooper of UCM recently found it! (He has had it twice before…) • Uses all of the campus computers after people log off to search. • 10,000th prime #. (Had to leave the computer running for 30 hours to get it!)
Easier to Solve • You have $10 to gamble on a fair coin toss, and you must bet the same percent of your money on every toss. If you fall below $0.01 you are eliminated from playing. If your money goes over $1 million you stop. What percent should you bet to maximize your chance of making $1 million?
Double check! • A simulation can double check a mathematical solution. • Famous mars lender crash that flew the exact path it was programmed to fly. • Radar tracking mode, one team had worked in meters, the other in feet… missile missed every target!
Monte Hall Problem. • Three doors, one has a prize behind it. You pick a door. Host opens one of the other doors, then asks, “do you want to keep the door you have, or switch to the remaining door?” • Should you stay? Switch? Or are they the same?
Monte Hall • http://marilynvossavant.com/game-show-problem/ • Multiple PhD’s in mathematics wrote in, with some condescending and wrong replies!
One for you: • If you flip coins, which sequence are you likely to see first, or are they equally likely? • HHT or THH ? • Extension: given any two patterns of coins, find the probability of which will occur first.