This is the homepage of Dr. Alice Deanin.(picture):
(official picture)
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Villanova University,
800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085-1699 USA
Phone: (610)519-4817
Fax: (610)519-6928
e-mail: alice.deanin@villanova.edu
NUMBER THEORY
My research training is in Number Theory, and my primary interests in this area are Computational Number Theory and Diophantine Approximation. My published research has been about p-adic continued fraction algorithms, but my recent endeavors have been directed at continued fractions in power series fields, particularly those with bounded partial quotients. This rather solitary investigation has been neglected of late in favor of more socially interactive endeavors.
MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
I have strong interest in and commitment to teaching. My axiomatic premise as a teacher is that all students have talents to develop, use, and enjoy mathematics. Instruction should be directed at ensuring that all students succeed in the classroom, and value their success there. I have used this basic premise in dealing with students at many levels and in different programs. I have done classroom enrichment in primary grade and middle school classrooms. In 1998-9 and 1999-2000, I worked with Dr. Chi Kyong Kim at the High School East in the Cherry Hill (NJ) Regional School District to further develop their STeM (Science, Technology and Mathematics) programs. This work is supported as part of the MACMATC. In 2001, I was the course instructor for a GEAR-UP grant course with the (now reassociated) Overbrook Cluster of the Philadelphia School District; this course developed didactic, content and social action programs to enhance Algebra instruction in the middle schools. In 2002, I codirected, with Tom Chubb, for the Urban Systemic Program of Philadelphia Regional Schools, two workshops supporting integrative teaching of Algebra and Science in grades 6-9. These workshops were offered through the Villanova Summer Teachers' Institute, Mat7310. I have supervised independent study projects for undegraduate math majors and education majors interested in mathematics education at all levels, as well as education and curriculum development projects with graduate mathematics students.
TEACHING AT VILLANOVA
I have taught a topics course for the Honors Programs Arts majors, Calculus for Life Sciences, (which led me to enthusiastic participation in the HHMI-NSF Young Scholars programs). I work every semester with junior and senior mathematics majors, usually teaching modern algebra or linear algebra. I also have seized the geometry course, offered as an elective for math majors and math grad students, required for math education majors. These courses all provided opportunities for interactive communication about mathematics and cooperative and project based work.
I conduct and direct seminars, as capstone courses for our graduate program leading to M.A. in Mathematics. In these seminars, each student selects a topic to investigate for the semester, and gives four presentations and writes four reports on the topic, at increasing levels of sophistication. I heartily recommend this colloquium type of format; it requires that the instructor develop some project management skills and sufficient chutzpah to offer to direct projects in anything. But it has had a tremendous payoff in study and research skills for students, and more importantly, a tangible evidence of the interconnectedness of different, seemingly distant, branches in mathematics. Graduate Math Seminar History of Topics
1999 Grad Seminar 2002 Grad Seminar 2003 Grad Seminar 2004 Grad Seminar 2005 Tu Grad Seminar
2005 Th Grad Seminar 2006 Grad Seminar 2007 Tu Grad Seminar 2007 Th Grad Seminar 2008 Grad Seminar
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