Grad Student Blooper Reel

By Jasmine Camero Whether you're scrolling through social media, listening to chatter in the math department lounge, or talking to an old friend you haven’t seen in a while, you are most likely pointing out the highlights of your life and career. You hardly ever hear anyone gloating about their struggles. Well, this is because...

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In the World of Mathematics Outreach, it’s Always Prime Time

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Best wishes to all for 2025, which happens to be the product of the proper divisors of its square root. Last year saw the announcement that a new “largest known prime number” had been discovered; an integer with 41,024,320 digits. Note to popular science writers: Notice that I just avoided...

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How I Found a Home for Wayward Mathematicians

By Kate Ertmann [Kate's Threads, Instagram, Facebook and BlueSky] It really sucks when you feel like you don’t have a community that you can share the greatest (non-human-associated) love of your life with. But if that love is true, you find a proxy to fill that absence of camaraderie. You (I) might pick up a...

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Math Values for the New Year

By Kira Hamman Well, it’s that time again, when the imaginary structure we’ve imposed on the Earth’s rotation around the sun calls on us to observe certain rituals: fireworks, champagne, songs nobody understands. A giant ball dropping in New York City, and various other things dropping in other parts of the country. Maybe a new...

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Meet the President-Elect of the MAA!

By Tim Chartier & Jenna Carpenter Earlier this year, frequent Math Values contributor Tim Chartier sat down with MAA President-Elect Jenna Carpenter to discuss her work increasing the participation of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM and her tips for creating more inclusive and welcoming institutions, departments, and classrooms. TC: You are noted nationally...

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Teaching Math as an Act of Resistance

By Dave Kung During the September Presidential debate, Kamala Harris pulled a surprising judo move. She invited the audience to attend one of her opponent’s rallies. In addition to the people leaving early, clearly a sore spot for her opponent, what I saw at those rallies was a large group of people unquestioningly believing what...

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Structuring Professional Learning Communities for College-Level Instructional Change

By Erin Moss STEM majors who are placed into college algebra frequently experience the course as an obstacle to success and timely degree completion. Since research has demonstrated that inquiry-oriented instruction leads to increased learning and persistence in STEM degrees, developing faculty who are able to implement that pedagogy in college algebra is a worthy...

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Calculus for Teachers: On Continuity

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. This month’s column was inspired by an article by Xiaoheng Yan, Ofer Marmur, and Rina Zazkis, “Calculus for Teachers: Perspective and Considerations for Mathematicians.” The authors had interviewed mostly Canadian mathematicians. Unlike Advanced Placement Calculus in the...

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Finding Motivation in Community

By Daniel Tedeschi “Grad school is a marathon, not a sprint.” I have heard this metaphor a thousand times over, but I must say, as a graduate student currently navigating the space, I find it wanting. I find describing grad school as a long walk to be more accurate. The exciting kind, where you trek...

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A Baker, a Decorator, and a Wedding Planner Walk into a Classroom

By Lew Ludwig Baking, Decorating, or Planning: What Role Are Your Students Playing? Are your students learning to bake the cake? Are they learning to decorate the cake? Or are they acting as wedding planners so they can outsource the cake so they can focus on the other stuff? This analogy, shared by Maha Bali...

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