Southeast math instructor Newman to make presentation during Kentucky Center for Mathematics Conference

Kathy Newman, an assistant professor of developmental mathematics at Southeast Kentucky Community amp; Technical College, will make a presentation during an upcoming conferences. The event, the Kentucky Center for Mathematics (KCM) annual conference slated to be held in Lexington, will feature Newmans presentation entitled: From Computation to Comprehension.

Newman was chosen by Cindy LaFreniere, KCM staff member. Newman recently worked with LaFreniere teaching math to GED students enrolled in adult education curricula. I am certainly flattered to have been chosen to speak at the conference and consider it quite an honor, Newman said.

An employee of SKCTC for 17 years, Newman, a native of Harlan County, works on the colleges Middlesboro campus and has been teaching developmental mathematics for the past few years. This is her first appearance at the KCM event, but she has presented at other math convocations over the course of her tenure at Southeast.

Sometimes we as educators get caught up in the concrete computation and rote memorization of math, she said. Math is so much more and math describes how the world works. If we can implant that fact in our students and have them think more abstractly about what they are doing, we may not fully get the question: How am I ever going to use this in real life?

She went on to say that during her presentation she plans to attempt to demonstrate how to take math problems and make them come alive. I enjoy putting my students and their friends in the equation; I will use the analogy of fruit to describe how numbers are different and how folks can think about money or bank accounts in certain problems. It makes it real -- from computation to comprehension.