Sister Barbara Reynolds, SDS

Biography

Sr. Barbara Reynolds is a mathematician, a Salvatorian Sister, and a teacher. She did graduate studies in mathematics at Saint Louis University, completing her PhD in June 1979. In her thesis, Taxicab Geometry: An Example of Minkowski Space, she explored the impact that changing the metric has on the shapes of the familiar conic sections. She entered the Sisters of the Divine Savior and began teaching at Cardinal Stritch College (now Cardinal Stritch University) in August 1979. As a mathematics teacher, she has been involved in projects that focused on the teaching of Calculus (C4L Calculus, and Project CALC, two of the calculus reform projects of the 1990s) and on using cooperative learning effectively in teaching undergraduate mathematics (Project CLUME). She has served as editor and coauthor of several books on cooperative learning, and has co-authored textbooks for pre-calculus, calculus, and geometry that integrate the use of technology and group work into the underlying pedagogy. Most recently, she and Bill Fenton completed College Geometry Using The Geometer’s Sketchpad (Wiley, 2012). As a Salvatorian Sister she has had opportunities to teach arithmetic for pre-nursing students in South Dakota, high school English literature in Mississippi, and conversational English in Tanzania, East Africa,and in Poland. Most summers find her spending time with the Clavius Group, an international group of research and teaching mathematicians (and their families). It was while she was with the Clavius Group in 2000 that she first became intrigued by the arbelos.

Education

• B.A., Saint Louis University
• M.S., Univ Of South Florida
• Ph.D., Saint Louis University

Expertise

• Mathematics across the undergraduate mathematics curriculum
• Cooperative Learning in Undergraduate Mathematics Education
• Teaching conversational English for English Language Learners