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By Lew Ludwig If nothing else, I am a grading machine. Students turn in homework every week except for testing weeks in each of my classes – ten weeks of homework, four tests, and a final exam. Yes. I am a grading machine. Or, a retired colleague often said, “They pay me to grade; I...

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Amber and the “Real” Semester

By Richard Delaware In fall 2014, I taught an introductory real analysis course (Math 402) at the University of Missouri--Kansas City. One of my students, Amber, struggled with the material, as many students do. In analysis, students need to prove or provide a reasoned argument for statements that it seems just a moment ago in...

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Faculty Professional Development as a Path to STEM Student Success

As Told By Melinda Lanius Edited By Erin Moss, Co-Editor, DUE Point, Millersville University Research demonstrates that evidence-based, inclusive pedagogical practices increase student success in STEM coursework.  The Inclusive Course Design for Enhancing Active Learning in STEM (IDEALS) project is designed to expand the knowledge base by investigating the impact of faculty professional development on...

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Testimonios: Dr. María Cristina Villalobos

Testimonios, a new publication from MAA/AMS, brings together first-person narratives from the vibrant, diverse, and complex Latinx and Hispanic mathematical community. Starting with childhood and family, the authors recount their own particular stories, highlighting their upbringing, education, and career paths. Testimonios seeks to inspire the next generation of Latinx and Hispanic mathematicians by featuring the...

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Tips on Making the Most Important Working Relationship of your Life Successful

By Holly Paige Chaos The relationship you have with your advisor is arguably the most important working relationship of your life. When I chose to attend the University of Vermont, I was lucky enough to do so with an advisor locked down before I got there; I had the opportunity to speak with her about...

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Was it Worth it?

By Ellen Veomett “So, do you think it was worth it?” This is the number one question I get when I mention to friends or colleagues that, 15 years after getting my PhD in math, I decided to get a Master’s degree in Computer Science.  This is a very straightforward question, to which I have...

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Leveling the Working Field: An Ethical Perspective

By Rick Cleary Mathematicians like to solve problems, and we advertise this trait when we promote the study of mathematics to students and their families. We have challenging problems in our fields of study, and there are also problems that arise in our professional lives. Many of these ‘big picture’ problems arise because we lack...

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What’s the Best Way to Teach Calculus?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org Short post this week, to give you time to read an important (and how!) research paper on university-level calculus instruction, published recently in SCIENCE, Vol 381, Issue 6661 (31 August 2023), pp. 995-998. Yes, it’s yet another study comparing active student engagement with traditional, lecture-based instruction. But wait. The paper’s title is Establishing a new...

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Trends in Minority Enrollments

By David Bressoud @dbressoud Last month I presented trends in Bachelor’s degrees earned in the mathematical sciences, with particular attention to gender disparities. This month I want to dig a little deeper into the different categories of students as tracked by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in particular what has happened to the...

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More Games Involving Geometry: EvenQuads

By Gary Gordon and Liz McMahon In our last episode, we saw how the card game SET® is closely tied to affine geometry. [See this post for the details.] SET cards have four attributes – number, color, shading, and shape – and each of those attributes has three possibilities: the number is 1, 2, or...

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