To many people, math seems like a complicated mix of numbers and symbols that only Albert Einstein could understand. But Jason Gershman, associate professor and coordinator of mathematics in Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, feels differently.
Math was something that always interested him. In high school, Gershman studied equations for fun. He competed in math competitions, including ones at state and national levels.
“I always liked math and I was always good at it. I got to travel around for competitions. I did math for fun and I still do math for fun,” said, Gershman.
In 1998, Gershman attended Rice University in Houston, where he earned three degrees: a bachelor’s in math, a master’s in statistics and a doctorate in statistics. While he was working on his doctorate, he found a love for teaching as a volunteer with an outreach program in which he taught stastitics to high school math teachers.
By the time Gershman finished his doctoral studies in 2007, he had been offered a teaching position at NSU. After seven years here, he still finds interesting ways to make math fun for his students, often customizing questions and problems to his students’ interests. With athletes, he uses sports scenarios and with musicians, he uses music industry questions.
“With statistics, I just connect it to something they can relate with … I try to relate everything in statistics back to something they can see and understand,” said Gershman.
Finding statistical examples to present in his class has become a fun project for him.
About 10 years ago, a friend sent Gershman a link to a website that presented data on the voting process of the reality show “American Idol.”
“My friend asked if the data was valid and I told him that there were some flaws, but it was valid, and you could use it to predict the outcome of the show,” said Gershman.
He used this as an example for his class, and based on the data, his class would predict which contestant was probably going to be voted off of the show. Their predictions were often right.
“I talked to the local news about that a couple of times and they were pretty fascinated, and I wanted to show my results to ‘American Idol,’ but they didn’t want to hear that their show had any flaws,” said Gershman.
Local media outlets, including WSVN 7, WPLG Local 10 and the Sun Sentinel have contacted Gershman for his opinion on the statistical data of a story.
“I do it for fun and I bring it all to the classroom. A lot of this is just digging though lots of data. But the actual math itself is really not that hard. It’s just the dedication of putting all the data into a form you can use,” said Gershman.
In March, Gershman was a presenter at TEDxNSU, an event featuring lectures, videos, visual art and interactive experiences that showcase the scholarly work of members of the university. TEDxNSU is a subset of TED, a global set of conferences and talks founded by the Sapling Foundation, which seek to spread ideas that can change the world. The TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.
At the TEDxNSU event, professors, faculty, and even graduate students present their work at the Performance Theatre of the Don Taft University Center. In his talk, Gershman explained the essential mathematics behind President Obama’s campaign team’s strategy of using targeted polling and advertising to optimize the number of votes they needed to win the 2012 election in key swing states.
“If you look at the data, it wasn’t really that hard. All the data was there and Obama’s team knew they were going to win because they had the right demographics. It wasn’t really a surprise and statistically, they were trying to reach a certain group they felt that was key to victory,” said Gershman.
This year, Gershman has joined the organizing committee of the next TEDxNSU event that will be held in the winter semester. Meanwhile, he’s busy teaching Statistics I, Statistics Honors, and Calculus Based Probability and Statistics.
“At NSU, I get to teach all kinds of students. People who have been in the military, have already had jobs, have families or finished high school late for various reasons,” said Gershman. “So many different people of all walks of life end up here at NSU, so getting to help them through a class like statistics and helping them be successful is a good thing.”
