Mentoring Female Undergraduates in Research-Centered Outreach

Abstract

Math Girls $\mathbb{R}$ock! is a year-long, two-tiered mathematics mentoring program that prepares female undergraduate mentors to facilitate high school girls' engagement in challenging mathematics concepts through a dynamic after-school program. In this article, we describe the distinct educational component of this program in which female faculty members mentor female undergraduate mathematics and mathematics education students in researching and developing the content to be presented at the high schools. In addition, we discuss some of the feedback collected from program participants about various aspects of this program relating to the involvement of the undergraduate students. In conclusion, we share advice for those interested in starting and running similar outreach programs.

Keywords:

• K–12 math outreach
• mentoring
• female role models
• women in math
• undergraduate research
• near-peer

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors want to express their sincere gratitude to everyone who has influenced their work, helped them, and supported them in various ways while running the Math Girls $\mathbb{R}$ock! program: Florence Fasanelli, Meghan Dewitt, Kathy Andrist, Xiaoyi Ji, Jennifer Hooper, Ellen Backus, and the math teachers at the participating high schools. In particular, the authors are especially thankful to all undergraduate and high school students who have inspired and worked with them throughout this program. Special thanks to Stina Nyhus who helped with compiling and analyzing data and Kristen Hornberger for her continuous support of this project. The authors also want to express their appreciation to the Utah Valley University Department of Mathematics and College of Science for their constant support and encouragement to run this program. The first author wants to thank Yuliya Babenko for providing resources for building the truncated polyhedra jewelry. In addition, the authors thank the anonymous referees and associated editors for the helpful suggestions and comments that benefited the paper greatly. This study was approved by the Utah Valley University Institutional Review Board (IRB Protocol #739).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Near-peer mentoring is used to describe communication or activity between people or organizations that are very similar or nearly equal. A near-peer teaching model is one in which a more experienced student acts as the instructor for less experienced students. [5]

2 The stylized $\mathbb{R}$ is meant to represent the set of real numbers.

3 In progress at this time.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful for financial support from the MAA Tensor Foundation and the Utah Valley University Math Initiative.

Notes on contributors

Violeta Vasilevska

Violeta Vasilevska is Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Utah Valley University (UVU). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and joined Utah Valley University in 2010. Her research interests are diverse, ranging from topics in pure mathematics (topology, algebra, and graph theory) to topics in math education/SoTL. She loves to engage her students in actively building their knowledge in class as well as outside of the classroom setting. Vasilevska co-founded and has been running the UVU outreach program Math Girls $\mathbb{R}$ock! for high school women since 2011. In her spare time, she loves doing Origami, reading, hiking, and traveling.

Carolyn Hamilton

Carolyn Hamilton is Associate Professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Operations at Utah Valley University. She received her M.S. in Mathematics from the University of California, Riverside and joined the UVU Mathematics Department in 1993, chairing the department from 2004 to 2009. Hamilton co-lead the Math Girls $\mathbb{R}$ock! program from 2011 to 2015. Her awards include the UVU Trustees Award of Excellence and the Deans Award for Excellence in Teaching. She currently coordinates the business calculus program at the Woodbury School of Business.