Welcome to Math Values from the Mathematical Association of America

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America Welcome to Math Values! Our goal is to use this platform to, in the words our mission, advance the understanding of mathematics and its impact on our world. Math Values is just one part of our overall strategy to communicate the power and beauty...

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Introducing DUE Point: An MAA blog on NSF-funded Projects Advancing Undergraduate Mathematics Education

By Katie Haymaker, Co-editor of DUE Point Every year the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds hundreds of grants that support undergraduate education, with many of them specifically targeting mathematics or STEM disciplines. The goals of the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) are “to provide leadership, support curriculum development, prepare the workforce, and foster connections.”...

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The Derivative is not the Slope of the Tangent Line

By David Bressoud @dbressoud The title of this article is not intended to imply that one cannot use the derivative to find the slope of a tangent line. My point is that we cannot and should not expect students to base their understanding of the derivative on the slope of the tangent. When I teach...

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Mathematics: A Critical Tool for Understanding the Oceans

By Adrian Constantin and George Haller This post is adapted from the introduction to a special issue on Mathematical Aspects of Physical Oceanography, volume 31, no. 3 of Oceanography, the official magazine of the Oceanographic Society, and is published with the permission of The Oceanography Society. Our knowledge and understanding of ocean dynamics is far...

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It’s High Time to Re-focus Systemic Mathematics Education – and Change the Way We Assess It

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin “In math you have to remember, in other subjects you can think about it.” That statement by a female high-school student, was quoted by my Stanford colleague Prof Jo Boaler in her 2009 book What's Math Got To Do With It? I took it as the title of my June 2010 Devlin’s Angle post,...

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CBMS Forum Announcement: High School to College Mathematics Pathways

By David Bressoud @dbressoud Figure 1. Bill McCallum, Brit Kirwan, and Joan Leitzel at the Third CBMS Forum, Content-Based Professional Development for Teachers of Mathematics, October 10-12, 2010 I am using this month’s column to announce the next Forum from the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), High School to College Mathematics Pathways: Preparing Students...

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Is Math Really Beautiful?

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin The above tweet caught my eye recently. The author is a National Board Certified mathematics teacher in New York City who has an active social media presence. Is his claim correct? Not surprisingly, a number of other mathematics educators responded, and in the course of the exchange, the author modified his...

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Should Students Wait until College to Take Calculus?

By David Bressoud @dbressoud I have often cited data from the Sadler and Sonnert FICSMath study (Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics, sponsored by NSF grant #0813702), a large-scale study of 10,437 students in mainstream Calculus I in the fall of 2009 at a stratified random sample of 134 U.S. colleges and universities. Sadler and Sonnert have...

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How a Fields Medal Led to a Mathematical Roller-coaster Journey

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin First, congratulations to Caucher Birkar, Alessio Figalli, Peter Scholze, and Akshay Venkatesh on being awarded the Fields Medal, an award that for regular “Devlin’s Angle” readers needs neither introduction nor description. (If it does, use Google.) With Fields Medals awarded only (at most) once every four years to mathematicians who produce...

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Learn Math and Live Longer

By Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America An interview with Dr. Ellen Peters from the Aug./Sept. issue of MAA FOCUS newsmagazine. Those of us who teach mathematics believe that the critical thinking skills gained through proficiency in mathematics has value that extends across multiple areas of our students’ lives.  Research in...

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