Do Math and Chess Make You a Better Problem Solver? Teaching Math for Life in a Wicked World

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin Does doing this make you better at solving problems outside of mathematics? Does taking a logic course at college make you a better reasoner? How about algebra? Or calculus? Or playing chess? You hear all of these touted as being beneficial to developing good critical thinking skills and being a better...

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Questioning Final Exams

By David Bressoud @dbressoud In this month’s column, I discuss my own thoughts about how to handle exams. I invite my readers to share their own thoughts here. I will summarize these in a future column. Last month I mentioned Paul Tough’s new book, The Years that Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us....

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Calculus and Virtual Reality

By Katie Haymaker, Co-editor of DUE Point The use of smartphones during class is commonly a source of exasperation for instructors, but not for Nick Long and Jeremy Becnel, of Stephen F. Austin State University. They created a smartphone app that brings virtual reality visualization tools within reach for students in multivariable calculus. The Calculus...

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A California Community College’s Response to Assembly Bill 705 and Its Impact on Math Placement

Photo credit: https://www.dvc.edu/academics/departments/math/statway.html By: Jamylle Carter, Professor of Mathematics, Diablo Valley College “I’m kind of nervous about being in this class.  Last year I wouldn’t have been able to take statistics because I hadn’t finished intermediate algebra.  Do you really think I can do this?” This question came from a returning adult student (“Lori”) on...

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Part I: The Critical Study of Ethics in Mathematics

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Most of us like to think of ourselves as ethical individuals, and in my experience and opinion, the mathematical sciences community as a whole manages quite well in this regard. But I’d also say that mostly, the practice of mathematics in and of itself...

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Student Teaching Evaluations are Effective, but Not in the Way You Think

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin As a department chair for four years and a dean for eight, I read a great many student evaluation folders of the faculty who taught them. In both institutions, we also had classroom peer review of instructors. I always felt far more confident in the information provided by experienced fellow instructors...

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Failing Low SES Students: Why it is Better to be Rich than Smart

By David Bressoud @dbressoud The Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) at Georgetown University has just released an important report, Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why equally talented students don’t get equal chances to be all they can be. The study compares socio-economic status (SES)—measured by parental income, education, and occupation—with educational performance...

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Visualizing Vectors

By Audrey Malagon, Lead Editor of DUE Point Anyone who has taught linear algebra knows how easy it is for students to get absorbed in performing matrix computations and memorizing theorems, losing the beauty of the structures in this foundational subject. James Factor and Susan Pustejovsky of Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI, bring back the...

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The Status of High School Mathematics: The 2018 NSSME+ Report

By David Bressoud @dbressoud Cover of NSSME report Roughly once every seven to eight years since 1977, Horizon Research has conducted a survey of K-12 science and mathematics teachers, principals, and district personnel in the United States. The latest of these studies, the National Survey of Science & Mathematics Education (NSSME), was run in 2018...

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What is a mathematical proof?

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin With the start of the new academic year, a new cadre of mathematics students will make their first encounter with university level math. For many, it will be traumatic. Not least, for those intending to be math majors. Typically, such students did well at high school, and arrive at university or...

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