Jim Loats, Ph.D.
Professor of
Mathematical Sciences
Metropolitan
State College of Denver, Denver Colorado
Office Hours
Tues. 10:00 – 11:30 am, 1:00 – 2:00 pm;
Wed. 1:30 – 2:30 pm;
Thur. 10:00 – 11:30 am
Office Hours By Appointment
Mon. 1:30 – 2:30 pm;
Wed. 11:30 – 1:30pm; Fri. 10am-noon.
Other times can be available. Email me to set up an appt.
Phone: 303-556-3109Fax: 303-556-5381
Email Address: loatsj@mscd.edu
Mail Address: Campus
Box 38, P.O. Box 173362, Denver CO 80217-3362
Education: B. A. Oklahoma State
Univ., M. S. Ohio Univ., and Ph.D. in Logic
& Set Theory, Univ. of Colorado Boulder
Areas of Interest: Mathematics Metropolitan State College of
Denver.
MTH
1610 Integrated
Mathematics I
MTH 3650 Foundations of Geometry
MTH
4600 Seminar
in Problem Solving
Metro's Rural Mathematics Project GEOMETRYcourse
will be meeting on-line Tuesdays, Thursdays 4:00 - 5:30pm for 5 weeks in Spring of
2010. Opening Saturday in Alamosa is February 6th and closing Saturday is March 13th.
On campus I work with the Center for Urban Education, a group of Metro faculty, staff, DPS teachers, administrators and members of the community who are interested in being part of the improvement in learning for K-12 students in west Denver schools. Follow this link for more information.
I'd like
to introduce you to the books I have co-authored:
Algebra Unplugged is a fun, easy to read, non-text for
beginning algebra. It is a lively introduction to the concepts of algebra for
readers who like to laugh while they learn. It has lots of stories that explain
the basic ideas well but without any of those annoying exercises. A great gift
... after you finish reading it yourself. If you are a teacher, experiment with
recommending sections of the book to your students. While many of us
(especially math teachers) learned math by listening to our teachers and
doing problems in the textbook, often some of us learn best by reading
well crafted and interesting explanations. This book has those explanations!
That was our main reason for writing it the way we did.
Calculus For Cats provides a vivid introduction/review of
the topics in beginning calculus using silly stories and analogies involving
cats, mice and other animals. Its style is similar to Algebra Unplugged
- both supply all the words that are missing from most math textbooks. Some
readers who had already taken calculus, reported gaining insight about what it
was all about! Enjoy.
Some
other items that are available:
On October 9, 2009 at the Fall 2009 CCTM conference I gave a talk on "What is real number?" The link is to the power point for that talk. And here is a rough draft of my spoken parts in that talk.
Here is a link to the History of Mathematics class web site that I co-teach for UCD each summer. In addition to the course materials that we use in teaching the class, you can also see many cool classroom implementations that our teachers created - a great resource if you'd like to bring History of Math to life in your middle or high school classroom.
This page of Principles
of Mathematical Thinking is one of the best descriptions of my goals for
math students of all ages.
Here is the set of questions
from NCTM that has been very helpful to me in learning to teach a
student-centered classroom.
Here is a collection
of materials that I have assembled for teachers of mathematics.
The best way
to reach me is by using the email address: loatsj@mscd.edu
Thanks,
Dr. Jim