Teacher professes passion for math

Professor Kelly McKinnie wants to show students how beautiful math can be, but finding beauty in something you struggle with can be hard.

Friday is Math Day 2011, a day devoted to showing area high school students and their teachers the joys of numbers.

The event will take place in the Gallagher Business Building — on a campus where many students need to take remedial math academic classes.  Remedial classes help students reach college course capabilities, but aren't worth any credit toward a degree. The University of Montana offers four remedial math courses and 60 sections for those classes, UM Registrar Edwin Johnson said.

"There are millions of dollars spent to help students gain those skills that they don't have for certain reasons," he said.

Johnson wouldn't specify how many students take remedial math courses, but their reasons for taking them vary, said Sharon O'Hare, director of the tutoring program Math PiLOT.

Many students don't take math their senior year of high school, so they experience "erosion" of their skills, O'Hare said.

Education department Professor Georgia Cobbs said the United States has fallen behind many other countries in math.

As a professor who teaches students how to teach elementary school, Cobbs thinks teachers' methods matter.  To her, making math fun is imperative.

"I try to make math fun in my teaching and learning.  I bring in lots of toys — manipulatives — but I call them toys," Cobbs said.  "I play; math is fun that way."

But McKinnie said students don't get to see the best parts of math if they don't go far enough.  

"I think mathematicians are always trying to explain the fascinating side of math, because math can be so beautiful and fun," McKinnie said.  "It's kind of unfortunate that some of the beautiful math doesn't come until you enter the university level."

But during Math Day, McKinnie wants to give high school students a glimpse of the intriguing theories and "mind-boggling paradoxes" that students who give up on math too early miss.  One of the topics that McKinnie will address Friday is "Exploring the Infinite," which is based on childhood banter, the phrase "infinity plus one."

"There are lots of things bigger than what we traditionally think of as infinity," McKinnie said.

Though Math Day 2011 is Friday, McKinnie's celebration won't end when the day does. McKinnie and her UM Math Day cofounder, Professor Jenny McNulty, will meet with groups of high school students every other Thursday for Missoula Math Circle activities, which will start on Oct. 6.

rebecca.calabrese@umontana.edu