The Politics of Education

By Michael Pearson A recent Washington Post article highlighted how state laws are increasingly dictating school curriculums, with conservative states often limiting discussions on controversial topics while progressive states opt for a broader, more inclusive educational scope. This growing trend underscores the deep divide in how education is approached across the United States, reflecting a...

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Using Data to Catalyze, Inform, and Sustain Change

By Jordan Kostiuk Recently, I had the joy of being in community with folks committed to tackling a wicked problem at the Critical Issues in Math Education (CIME) workshop hosted by SLMath: How do we provide equitable and effective math instruction to all students? As an inspirational and motivating three days came to a close,...

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The Power of Community in Tackling Wicked Problems: Reflections on a CIME Workshop

By Beca Lufi At the beginning of the year, I heard about the SLMath workshop on Critical Issues in Mathematics Education series. This year, the workshop focused on empowering teaching faculty to be change agents. I couldn't help but anticipate an extraordinary journey of professional and personal development. I had heard of MSRI (now known...

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Transforming Post Secondary Mathematics Education: A 50-State Scan

By Helen Burn & Joan Zoellner In recent years, a wave of reforms has swept through post secondary mathematics education, with the goal of improving student success and graduation rates. The central focus? Ensuring that students successfully complete an introductory or gateway mathematics course relevant to their programs of study within their first year of...

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Our Students Are Constantly Changing. Are We?

By Luke Tunstall Something isn’t quite right here, and it’s made me feel uneasy for the last five years. From my vantage point organizing an institution’s math placement process and creating quantitative support curricula, there’s an elephant in the room that many postsecondary institutions are struggling to address: the increasingly diverse mathematics backgrounds of our...

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A Radical Approach to the Logarithm

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. My experience has been that most students never understand logarithms. Inevitably they struggle to remember that log(a*b) = log(a) + log(b) and log(a^n) = n log(a). The standard approach is to introduce the logarithmic function as the inverse...

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This Is Not My Home: Embracing the Nomadic Life of Grad School

  By Krystal Maughan “We have begun our initial descent; please ensure your safety belts are on,” said the familiar voice of the pilot. I peered out the window and saw a sheet of white snow and a grey sky where, just a few hours ago, I had overlooked warm, turquoise waters and whipped past...

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A Mathematician’s Quest to Shape AI into the Ideal Calculus Student

  By Lew Ludwig I am a B+ \LaTeX{} user. I use it to write all my weekly homeworks and tests. I know to use \displaystyle to make my limits look nice, and I can kludge an $\underline{\hspace{1.in}}$ to make a blank space for an answer on a test. But things like tables give me...

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Everyone Has a Seat at the Table

By Lakeshia Legette Jones I believe the professional paradise is the place where teaching, research, and personal values intersect. It happens commonly for those in the social sciences and humanities. Having friends (and a husband) in these areas, I’m familiar with that side of the academic coin. I enjoy watching and listening to the ways...

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What’s it like to be a student in my class?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social “What’s it like to be a student in my class?” I’ve periodically asked myself that question many times throughout my long career as a mathematics educator. The longer I taught, the greater became the disconnect between how I had perceived mathematics when I was first learning it, and how mathematics...

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