Elyn Rykken Professor, Mathematics |
Education
Teaching Interests
One of my strengths as a teacher and colleague is that I am willing and able to teach a wide variety of courses. Since joining the department, I have taught 16 different courses. As I have worked over the years to hone my teaching style, I have focused on the narrative for each of these courses. I strive to give every course an overarching story to help explain and connect the individual topics that we cover during the semester. To achieve this, I make an effort to motivate the material and to illustrate how it fits into the larger context of the subject and mathematics in general.
Whenever possible, I introduce historical anecdotes into my classes, sometimes including a picture and a short biography of an important historical figure. I find that these anecdotes personalize the abstract ideas and convey a sense of the people behind the concepts. In contrast to the notion that mathematics is unchanging, I like to remind my students that definitions, theorems and notation are things that are created, discovered and developed by people and that the body of mathematical knowledge is continually evolving.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
As reflected in the topics of my books, papers and presentations, my interests are well-rounded and include geometry, dynamical systems, game theory, voting theory, the history of mathematics and innovative teaching projects. In total, I have published two books, one lab project book and eleven articles. While three of my earliest papers are in the field of dynamical systems, my scholarly interests broadened after coming to Muhlenberg College, resulting in more expository articles and fewer technical ones.