An Interview with Dr. Cathy O’Neil

By Carrie Diaz Eaton, Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies, Bates College Using Popular Books in Teaching and Learning Last semester I organized a book club for my program. I was teaching a Discrete Modeling and Structures course, which attempted combine mathematical modeling with the study of structures for programming.  One of the elements...

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StatPREP

By Audrey Malagon, Lead Editor of DUE Point Data Science is taking the world by storm. Are we preparing our students for this rapidly growing industry? MAA’s DUE Point blog sat down with StatPREP principal investigator Doug Ensley to discuss this five-year project to help faculty incorporate data-centered components in introductory stats courses. Q: What...

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Why the Admissions Scandal Matters to MAA

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America This week’s indictments of prominent, wealthy individuals for illegal actions as they sought admission for their children to elite colleges and universities brings national attention to inequity in access to higher education. While the extreme (and illegal) acts at the center of these stories...

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IMO Medalists & Their Contributions

By Meera Desai International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the World Championship Mathematics Competition for high school students. The first IMO was held in 1959 in Romania and only 7 countries participated that year. Now, the competition has expanded to over 100 countries spanning major regions of the world. The team from the United States won...

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On Microaggressions, Kind Humor, and People Who Lift Your Spirits

By Rachel Levy, Deputy Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Rachel Levy, MAA Deputy Executive Director and Francis Su, past MAA President I have been thinking lately about reports of microaggressions at math conferences and in the classroom.  These can take the form of thoughtless comments that might make someone feel unwelcome.  Thoughtless...

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Data 4 Black Lives

By Carrie Diaz Eaton, Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies, Bates College Last year, I was checking what’s trending on Twitter (@mathprofcarrie) and started seeing a lot of really cool posts from individuals I respect, such as Dr. Piper Harron (@pwr2dppl) and Dr. Cathy O’Neil (@mathbabedotorg), being retweeted by my community.  They all had...

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Data Science at the 2019 AAAS Annual Meeting: Illustrating Opportunities for Undergraduate Mathematics Education

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America AAAS gets my vote for the best ribbons to attach to attendee badges! This year’s annual meeting of the AAAS was held in Washington, DC, in mid February. Since it was only a few blocks from MAA’s offices, I decided it was a great...

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The Issue of Online Homework

By David Bressoud @dbressoud Online homework systems have become ubiquitous in introductory mathematics courses. The 2009 AMS survey found that 65% of PhD-granting departments of mathematics, 70% of Master’s degree-granting departments, and 43% of Bachelor’s degree-granting departments were using online homework (Kehoe, 2010). For Calculus I, the 2010 MAA survey undertaken as part of Characteristics...

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What is mathematical creativity, how do we develop it, and should we try to measure it? PART 2

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin “What is creative mathematical thinking?” That’s the question I set out to answer last month. The discussion got this far: Creative mathematical thinking is non-algorithmic mathematical thinking. The question arose when a long-time friend (and former teacher) from the ed tech world and I had an email exchange, prompted in part by...

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Broadening Participation in the MAA Competitions Programs

By Rachel Levy, Deputy Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Teachers at the NCSSM 2019 Teaching Contemporary Mathematics Conference discuss broadening participation in the MAA AMC and field test materials from MAA Mathematician-at-large James Tanton When I began my work as MAA Deputy Executive Director in Denver at MAA MathFest 2018, I knew...

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