Are Remedial Courses the Best Way to Respond to a Failing Grade in Math?

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social The title question applies—and has often been asked and debated—at both school and (first-year) university level. The issue is particularly acute for 9th Grade high school students with regard to Algebra 1. If they fail that course, they are unlikely to meet the admissions requirements when they apply to college as...

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Projective Plane Games – Fire and Ice

By Gary Gordon and Liz McMahon We are living in a golden age for games. In previous posts, we looked at the card game SET and the closely related game EvenQuads. These games share lots of attractive properties, and in those posts, we connected those properties to an underlying geometric structure. Our goal is to...

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Supporting Students Across Readiness Levels in Corequisite Models

By Florence Xiaotao Ran Over the past decade, developmental education has experienced major changes. More than 20 states and higher education systems have moved away from traditional prerequisite models to adopt corequisite remediation. This innovative approach enables students to enroll directly in college-level courses while receiving the additional developmental support they need, all at the...

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Designing with Nature’s Math

By Nick Nakadate I am often asked what inspires my design aesthetic and how images manifest. I’m a big fan of the patterns that occur in nature, and I use math heavily in the technical design that I first learned and used when I worked as an architect. I admittedly take pointers from the Catalan...

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Calculus for Teachers: The Mean Value Theorem

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month. The inclusion of the Mean Value Theorem in a standard first-year calculus course, especially Advanced Placement Calculus AB, is a curious choice. Students are expected to know the necessary assumptions—the function is continuous on [a,b] and differentiable...

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Mathematics with Heart: A reflection on how compassionate teaching can reduce anxiety and empower students

By Monica Morales-Hernandez As a Mexican woman of color teaching entry-level math courses at a liberal arts institution, I can attest to how vital it is to address math anxiety in students and counteract it by fostering a compassionate learning environment. Math anxiety is a well-documented phenomenon that affects cognitive functioning, often leading to lower...

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Opening the Gate Without Losing the Flock

By Lew Ludwig As we navigate through our third year of integrating generative AI into higher education, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this technology will not quietly fade away like MOOCs (remember those?). Not only are students already using a variety of AI technologies, but employers also expect graduates to possess AI skills. Consequently, students...

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Grad Student Blooper Reel

By Jasmine Camero Whether you're scrolling through social media, listening to chatter in the math department lounge, or talking to an old friend you haven’t seen in a while, you are most likely pointing out the highlights of your life and career. You hardly ever hear anyone gloating about their struggles. Well, this is because...

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In the World of Mathematics Outreach, it’s Always Prime Time

By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social Best wishes to all for 2025, which happens to be the product of the proper divisors of its square root. Last year saw the announcement that a new “largest known prime number” had been discovered; an integer with 41,024,320 digits. Note to popular science writers: Notice that I just avoided...

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How I Found a Home for Wayward Mathematicians

By Kate Ertmann [Kate's Threads, Instagram, Facebook and BlueSky] It really sucks when you feel like you don’t have a community that you can share the greatest (non-human-associated) love of your life with. But if that love is true, you find a proxy to fill that absence of camaraderie. You (I) might pick up a...

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