How to Learn Mathematics

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. This is a review of David Bessis’s Mathematica: A secret world of intuition and curiosity, translated from the French by Kevin Frey and published this year by Yale University Press. It was originally written for MAA Reviews,...

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WEBSIGMAA: A Revitalization Effort

  By Shanda Hood, Joe Fields, Bernd Sing, and Brian Walton What values do MAA members hold in common? If we were to ask “what are our most important values?” the set of answers would likely be in one-to-one correspondence with the set of members. The intersection of our set of values, though, is hopefully...

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The Temperature of the Room

By Lew Ludwig So, have you had that conversation with your students yet? You know, the one where you discuss your AI policy and explain the reasons behind it? It's a chat more and more educators are having. Gone are the days when banning AI outright seemed feasible; crafting "AI-proof" assignments now feels like a...

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Finding my people: One mathematician’s reflection on MAA MathFest 2024

By Anastasiia Minenkova Most of my graduate years were during the Covid-19 pandemic. I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. The isolation and lack of social interaction took a toll on my mental health. I missed the simple joys of meeting other people, sharing ideas, and being a part of a community. Once everything went...

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What is the Most Valuable Benefit You Got from Becoming a Mathematician?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Having a media presence, I often get asked for a quotable answer to that question. I usually answer, “It taught me never to be sure I’m right.” Mathematics is unforgiving. If you made an error in your solution or your proof, you have only two choices. Correct the error or...

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Winging It in the AI Apocalypse

By Matt Jackson Generative AI emerged with the suddenness of a large earthquake and with implications that shook our foundation. AI tools surfaced as simultaneously powerful and destabilizing, with inherent ethical and existential questions. I work in Technology and Innovation at a small liberal arts college, and am among the staff tasked with learning and, soon,...

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Grad Students Leading the Way: How to organize your own local workshop

By Pamela E. Harris and Alex Moon I am always impressed by students who take the initiative to lead in their own learning. As I thought about this recently, Alex Moon, a second year graduate student at UW-Milwaukee, came to mind providing an example of how students can lead in this way. The lack of...

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Should You Choose to Serve First in a Pickleball Match?

By William Figary and Miky Wright Pickleball is growing in popularity. When a team in a doubles game gets to serve first, they seem to be in control of the match and may continue to score until they win. But there are a lot of other things besides serving that affect the chances of winning....

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The State of IBL

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. I talked about inquiry-based learning (IBL) in my Launchings column of April 2019, “Recent Research into IBL Mathematics.” Of particular importance was the article by Laursen and Rasmussen that had recently appeared, “I on the prize: Inquiry...

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Mathematicians and Money Management

    By Annalisa Crannell This is a blog post about mathematics and money. To be a little more specific, it’s about mathematics, money, my life, and how those have all come together so that I’m writing this as I retire (“retire”, heh heh) at the age of 58. I’ve always been a big fan...

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