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...

---

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...

---

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...

---

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...

---

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...

---

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...

---

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...

---

The Need for HBCUs in the STEM Pipeline

The Failure to Quell Racism and Racialized Experiences Supports the Need to Maintain and Sustain HBCUs in the United States  Note: This introductory article is the first one in a series of articles on HBCUs. By: Jacqueline Brannon-Giles, Resident Professor, Houston Community College Central Campus, Adjunct Professor Texas Southern University, @JackieBGiles Consultants: Willie Taylor, PhD;...

---

COURAGE in Undergraduate Mathematics

By Erin Moss, Co-editor of DUE Point Challenging, Operationalizing, and Understanding Racialized and Gendered Events (COURAGE) in Undergraduate Mathematics is a collaboration between researchers at Rutgers University and Vanderbilt University.  It is supported by the NSF IUSE (Improving Undergraduate STEM Education) program, which funds projects addressing educational advances in STEM fields for both majors and...

---

Connecting Departments, Policies, and RUME

By Naneh Apkarian, Dana Kirin, Jessica Gehrtz, and Kristen Vroom, guest bloggers This is part of the occasional series of guest blog posts on Launchings. Others who wish to submit a guest blog post for consideration should contact bressoud@macalester.edu. This guest blog is to promote a new article, titled “Connecting the Stakeholders: Departments, Policy, and...

---