Professor Poirier | D760 | Spring 2024

Category: Assignment Instructions (Page 5 of 5)

OpenLab assignment: Black history month profile!

Due Sunday, February 11

Animated gif that looks like writing on a chalkboard that says "Black history is happening now"

It’s Black history month! For this assignment, you will write a short profile or biography of a Black mathematician or math educator (or someone else in the Black-in-math community). You will submit your profile as a comment on this post. You have lots of choices for where to find this information and you can use whatever resources you like. Here are two suggestions:

Suggestion 1: 

A few years ago, the @BlackInMath account on Twitter hosted  #BlackInMathWeek to celebrate living Black mathematicians. It was a really fun week with different Twitter events planned for different days, but it kicked off with a roll call where people in the Black-in-math community introduced themselves. Later in the week, people tweeted about their own Black-in-math journeys. You do not need to have a Twitter account to see these introductions. In particular, check out the hashtags:

#BlackInMathRollCall

#MyBlackMathJourney

Suggestion 2: The awesome website Mathematically Gifted & Black is honoring a new person every day this month. You can check out this year’s honorees or previous years’ on the Circle of Excellence tab at the top of their page. (You can also check out their Instagram page.)

Instructions

Pick one Black mathematician or math educator to learn about. Aside from their MG&B profile or their Twitter introduction, what else can you learn about them? (How has their life changed since their Twitter introduction?) Write a short biography (5 or 6 sentences….or more!) of this person. Include their name and where they are on their math journey (are they a graduate student? a professor? where? do they do research in math? are they involved in the Black math community in some other way?). Include a photo of them if you like. Include the field of math that they study and anything else you can tell us about them! What makes this person so awesome and interesting to you? What questions do you have for them? Include links to the pages where you found information about them.

Submit your profile as a comment on this post below for participation credit

Fun fact

Most of you might be too young to know who the rapper MC Hammer is, but he was a childhood hero of mine. He’s an activist too and in modern times he’s used his Twitter platform to promote different #BlackInSTEM initiatives, including #BlackInMath.

During Black in math week, MC Hammer retweeted and followed my friend Marissa AND IT WAS SO EXCITING!!! (PS, Someone should totally profile Marissa for this assignment because she is a BOSS! BTW she’s no longer a postdoc at Georgia Tech; she’s now a professor at University of Wisconsin–Madison.)

Introduce yourself!

Your first assignment is to add yourself to our OpenLab course and to submit a post according to the instructions below. Your post will count toward your participation grade.

Add yourself to our OpenLab course

  1. If you haven’t already, sign up for an OpenLab account using your CityTech email address.
  2. After you’ve logged in, add yourself to our MAT 2580 course by clicking “join group.” (This is the course profile page; we won’t be using it again for the rest of the semester. Instead we’ll be using the course site.)

Submit a post introducing yourself

  1. From the class OpenLab site you can create a new post by clicking the symbol that looks like a + sign inside a circle at the top of the screen.
  2. You must be a member of the course and logged in to see the + sign at the top of the screen. If you don’t see it, head back to the course profile to add yourself to the group.
  3. Title your post “Introducing [your first name] [your last name].” (You may use just initials if you like, as long as there’s enough information for me to locate you on my official roster.)
  4. Tell us anything you’d like us to know about you! Write one paragraph with at least five sentences. Some suggestions are…
    • Your pronouns (examples: she/her/hers or he/him/his or they/them/theirs)
    • Your major and how you became interested in your major
    • Which math classes you’ll take after this one (if you don’t know, you can check your program requirements in the college catalog here)
    • What you hope to do after you graduate from CityTech; short-term goals, long-term goals, whatever…Other interests/hobbies you have
    • Something you’re good at
    • Something you’re bad at (you’re not allowed to say math!)
    • An interesting fact about yourself
    • A boring fact about yourself
    • Your favorite book
    • Your favorite animal
    • If you feel comfortable, add a picture of yourself…. OR YOUR PETS!!!
  5. Your post will not be published without a category. On the menu at the right of the screen, click on “Post,” then scroll to “Categories,” and select Introduce yourself.
  6. Remember that this post will be available publicly on the internet. Don’t include any private information or anything you’re not comfortable with sharing publicly. (Don’t include your phone number or any answers to security questions!)
  7. Read and comment on at least one your classmates’ posts. (Note: the administrator may have to approve your comments, so don’t worry if your comments don’t appear right away.)
  8. If you have anything private that you’d like to share with me but not with the whole class (for example, if you are to receive a testing accommodation through Student Support Services), please include this information when you complete the first-day survey.
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