

Since 2012 he has served as vice president of Teachers-2-Teachers Global, which develops teams of mathematics coaches who travel to rural villages throughout the world to provide professional development to teachers. For eight years, he led teams of educators providing professional development for Mayan charter school teachers in the rural Highlands of Guatemala.

There, he served as the college’s lead administrator at Mercer, which has campuses in Macon, Atlanta, Henry, Douglas and Newnan, Ga.īefore coming to BSU in 2013, he held a variety of administrative and teaching positions including director of the American Indian Teacher Education Program at Utah State University–Eastern, associate department head of regional campus and distance education at Utah State University, assistant and associate professor of education and human services at Utah State University, visiting professor in the Office of First Nation and Inuit Education at McGill University/Concordia University, and assistant professor of early childhood education and reading at Georgia Southern University.īarta has developed a national and international reputation for his work in ethnomathematics, the study of the relationship between mathematics and culture with a focus on indigenous cultures in the United States, Canada and Central America. In between, he was dean and professor at Mercer University’s Tift College of Education since 2015. This work illustrates to teachers how the lived experiences of their students can create bridges of understanding and learn the relevance and application of their newly gained knowledge.īarta has been dean of Bemidji State’s College of Health Sciences and Human Ecology since July 2017 after serving two years as interim dean from 2013-2015. Using this knowledge as a framework, he explains these traditional activities using modern mathematical concepts.

His research involves interviewing elders in tribal communities to learn how math was traditionally used in everyday practice such as in beadwork, moccasin or mitten making, home construction, telling time or making a calendar. “For others, including many sharing an indigenous paradigm, ‘math’ is a verb where people name it how they use it.” “For most ‘math’ is a noun and thought of as something fixed, impersonal and rigid,” he said.
Bsu university of oregon series#
Admission is free to all.īarta’s lecture, “Math and Culture: Indigenous Activities and Instruction for Our Students,” begins a five-lecture series that includes faculty from the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University and the University of Manitoba.īarta will be sharing his research into ethnomathematics, which studies the relationship between math and cultures. at BSU’s American Indian Resource Center.

Jim Barta, dean of the College of Health Sciences and Human Ecology at Bemidji State University, will kick off a newly formed Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series April 2 with a presentation on mathematics and indigenous culture. BSU Dean Barta Opens New Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series April 2 March 26, 2018ĭr.
