Holding Calculus in Your Hands

by Audrey Malagon, Lead Editor, DUE Point Students often struggle to visualize concepts in multivariable calculus. While technology can help, virtual surfaces can still seem out of reach. Aaron Wangberg of Winona State University describes how this team created dry erase surfaces and supporting materials to enhance students’ interpretation of the mathematical objects they were...

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How double-entry bookkeeping changed the world

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin Examining a first edition copy of Pacioli’s book Summa (1494) What’s your reaction when you see the term “double-entry book-keeping”? Do you associate it with cool, societal-changing innovations like the Internet, Google, social media, laptops, and smartphones? Probably not. Neither did I—until I was asked to write a brief article about...

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The Role of Discipline-Based Education Specialists

By David Bressoud @dbressoud The Education Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is currently preparing for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. In anticipation of the committee hearings, they have asked for input from interested parties. A group of us put together a joint statement that is being submitted on behalf of MAA...

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Science, Data, and Evidence-Based Public Policy

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America The federal government has long played a central role in collecting and analyzing data, for all sorts of reasons. Our founders recognized that this should be so; the U.S. Constitution calls for a census (Article 1, Section 2) in order to appropriately allocate votes....

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MAA Math Ambassadors in a Global Mathematics Community

By Rachel Levy, Deputy Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Jeanette Shakalli, Executive Assistant of the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Panama Have you heard about the fantastic mathematics outreach program in Panama run by Dr. Jeanette Shakalli? Jeanette is a mathematician who currently serves as Executive...

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Discovering the Art of Mathematics

By Erin Moss, Co-editor of DUE Point Students participating in DAoM Mathematics for Liberal Arts (MLA) is one of the largest undergraduate mathematics cohorts.  Unfortunately, MLA coursework is largely disconnected from students’ academic interests and frequently fails to engage them in research-recommended active learning approaches.  Discovering the Art of Mathematics (DAoM) curriculum materials provide unique...

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On Marty Badoian and Being a Canton Mathlete

By Carrie Diaz Eaton, Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies, Bates College At the beginning of my first semester here at Bates, I received some jarring news. My high school math teacher, Marty Badoian, had passed away. I think everyone has that professor or teacher.  You know - “the one” that all paths lead...

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Echoes from the Past, Looking to the Future

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Janet Ray, a dear friend who was one of MAA’s representatives on the project team that launched the AMATYC ACCCESS program, recently sent me a copy of the seventh edition of a 19th century text, Elements of Algebra, advertised by its author James Thomson,...

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Recent Research into IBL in Mathematics

By David Bressoud @dbressoud Notice: I have considered myself part of the IBL community in mathematics since my first IBL conference in 2008. I currently serve on the Board of Directors of The Initiative for Mathematics Learning by Inquiry (MLI), a public nonprofit organization that supports this community of practitioners. The opinions expressed here are...

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Summa de Arithmetica – a landmark in the development of the modern world

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin FOR SALE, ARITHMETIC TEXTBOOK, USED, GOOD CONDITION. DETAILS BELOW. Okay, with an expected sale price at auction of $1M to $1.5M, this is not your typical, used, math textbook. In fact, you can get a sense of the anticipated buyer by the title of the sale: the subtitle of Luca Pacioli’s...

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