2012 Noyce Conference Program - The Robert Noyce Scholarship ...

SCHOLAR/FELLOW POSTER ABSTRACTSMany youth who come from low socioeconomic backgroundsalso have low social capital because they live in communities andhomes that predominately have members of the working class.Thus, these youth do not have opportunities to get directly acquaintedwith professionals in scientific fields who can serve aspositive role models in influencing these students' future careerpaths. Many students from underprivileged neighborhoods believethat it is too hard to enter these career fields, have unrealisticperceptions of who science professionals are and what theydo, and/or they simply do not know what educational steps totake to reach those fields. This activity proposes using new technologieslike Skype and Google+ to bring these working professionalsinto the classroom through live video and allowing thestudents to interview them, learn about what they do, and hearabout their educational and personal experiences that led themto where they are today. The selected science professionals willcollaborate with the classroom teacher to “visit” the classroomon several occasions throughout the school year so that thestudents and professionals can develop familiarity and to givethe students time to explore ideas and questions with theseprofessionals.S/F54Title: Parent Involvement: An Investigation of Perceptions andthe Implementation of StrategiesPresenter(s): Michael Lawson, Current Noyce ScholarEmail: mlawso13@utk.eduInstitution: University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleSchool Name & District Currently Teaching: Central High School,Knox CountyProject Discipline: Secondary Teaching, MathematicsFocus: Parent InvolvementResearch has shown that parent involvement and communicationbetween parents and teachers can provide many benefitsfor students, especially in mathematics. However, this parentinvolvement shows a decline as student’s progress from elementaryto secondary schooling. Since student achievement andbetterment is the goal for any educator, many secondary educatorsneed to see parents as an untapped resource in helpingraise their students’ achievement. Thus, the purpose of thisstudy is to investigate the perceptions of parent involvement in asecondary school and implement parent involvement strategiesto keep parents informed about the classroom, involved in studentwork and classroom activities.The poster presentation will describe strategies and provideartifacts that were used to assess parent involvement and toinvolve parents at the high school, as part of an action researchproject. Participants of this study were high school teachersand administrators, and the parents and students of an AlgebraII class. The strategies and artifacts include parent surveys, classnewsletters, progress reports, interactive homework assignments,and a Family Math Night. Also included on the poster arelessons learned and implications for further research revolvingaround parent involvement.S/F55Title: The Noyce Grant and Pre‐Service UTeach Students at theUniversity of Texas at DallasPresenter(s): Georgia Stuart, Current Noyce ScholarEmail: gks090020@utdallas.eduInstitution: University of Texas at DallasProject Discipline: MathAt the University of Texas at Dallas, students in the UTeach scienceand mathematics teacher preparation program receiveNoyce funds in the form of scholarships and internship support.This poster will demonstrate some of the ways Noyce fundinghelps our students become better science and math teachers.S/F56Title: Determination of Isomorphism Class Using Cayley GraphsPresenter(s): Katherine Horn, Current Noyce ScholarEmail: khorn@patriots.uttyler.eduInstitution: University of Texas at TylerSchool Name & District Currently Teaching:Project Discipline: Mathematics ‐ Abstract AlgebraWhen specific colors have been assigned to Cayley sets of aCayley graph and the edges have been colored accordingly, wecall this a complete colored Cayley graph. Once Cayley sets havebeen identified, we can construct two different multiplicationtables: one of the group and the other of its opposite group.Ambiguous groups have complete colored Cayley graphs thatcannot be distinguished from their opposite group. We establishthe Subgroup Theorem and conclude that the complete coloredCayley graph does determine the isomorphism class for ambiguousgroups. n this paper we extensively detail the publishedwork of Goldstone, McCabe, and Weld (2010).Instead of looking at directed Cayley digraphs, we examine whatknowledge can be gained from certain undirected Cayley graphs.In these graphs, each vertex represents an element of the group.The identity vertex is given and the edges connecting verticesare colored according to an associating Cayley set. Involutionsand inverses are easily determined with this complete coloredCayley graph. Because the direction of the group operation isnot given, the relationship between elements cannot be certain.We must list the possible relations for each element in both directionsof multiplication. At this point we must choose one possibilityfor a specific element rather than the other. Throughprocess of elimination and a technique similar to solving Sudokupuzzles, we are able to determine the full tables for mostgroups. But when the other option is chosen, the transpose ofthe original multiplication table is produced. This is the operationtable for the group whose multiplication is opposite that of2012 NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program ConferenceA86