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1500 questions
16
votes
1 answer
Standards-based grading in calculus
A friend of mine recently tried a standards-based grading (SBG) approach for her Calculus II course. (You can read about Kate's experience on her blog.) I find this approach to evaluation very interesting and, after seeing Kate's success, I am eager…
François G. Dorais
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What are some resources for "ungrading" in a math class?
Most of the stuff I'm finding online about ungrading are either general descriptions of its virtues, or personal accounts from instructors from subjects other than math. Does anyone know any resources pertaining to ungrading specific to math…
Mike Pierce
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1 answer
How to improve atmosphere in male-dominated courses
I'm teaching a graduate applied mathematics qualifying exam review course this summer, and I have 9 males and 1 female. My co-instructor and I are also both male. While I don't necessarily see this being an issue, I'm trying to be more sensitive…
icurays1
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16
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1 answer
Student Conjectures without Oracular Professor
One idea for mid-level college math classes (i.e. after calculus, before highly proof based courses) which I've seen people speak very positively of is to have a portion of the course consist of students producing conjectures on their own by coming…
Henry Towsner
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The general and particular in the psychology of mathematics education
Many students I have spoken with who are drawn to becoming mathematics teachers chose their mathematics major because they enjoyed doing routine exercises in high school. The comfort of a definite and systematic general procedure that eliminates…
Jon Bannon
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3 answers
Teaching strong induction instead of induction
After teaching induction and then strong induction (i.e. the version where you assume $\forall k
Mike Shulman
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15
votes
6 answers
How to get students in a under-graduate linear algebra course interested in determinants?
Before teaching the chapter on determinants in a linear-algebra course for beginning undergraduate students (mathematics and computer science, more specifically) I would like to give a small introduction and convince the students that this is an…
quid
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15
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7 answers
How to teach brackets?
I was taught in a school that one has to use different brackets in expressions like $\{[(3+4)\cdot 4]^4\}^{1/2}$ to denote the order which subexpression is evaluated first. But can this be recommended in current mathematics? I guess no as one can…
beginnertutor
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7 answers
How do you explain why perpendicular lines have negative reciprocated slopes?
For my purposes, I am interested mostly in a medium-sized liberal art college setting. My students have mostly seen this before, but it is not something they understand. When discussing parallel lines, I have them try to find a point of…
David Steinberg
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4 answers
When should a kid have memorized the multiplication table?
To contextualize: I know someone who is ten years old, and needed to use repeated addition to compute $4 \times 8$, i.e., needed to calculate it as $4 \times 8 = 8+8+8+8$.
Question: By what age should a kid have memorized the multiplication table?
Pichi Wuana
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15
votes
4 answers
Confirmation bias in math education
Confirmation bias is a quality of human mental processes which makes us tend to think in terms of positive examples and tests that would confirm our working hypothesis, rather than negative examples or tests that would falsify the conjecture.
2-4-6…
dtldarek
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15
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2 answers
How to choose/test future tutors?
When I have to give a big lecture with a lot of exercise groups, I have to choose the tutors who are grading the student's homework and explaining the lecture to the students.
How can I find out if someone is suitable? What are good ideas to test if…
Markus Klein
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15
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6 answers
Is there any difference between teaching calculus for math and engineering students?
In our university both math and engineering students attend in the same calculus classes. There are arguments in our department about the possible influences of this approach on students. It seems based on the students' needs in their future career…
user230
15
votes
5 answers
How to deal with answers containing completely off-topic/random/very wrong arguments?
It often happens that students answer (partly) a questions in an exam (lets assume this part is okay), but then add something completely off-topic or something very wrong in their answer (see examples below).
How would you deal with such an issue…
Markus Klein
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15
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7 answers
The sum - product problem
I have long been a fan of all of the different methods for factoring quadratics, yet I hardly ever use them in my classroom. The first task they are confronted with, in factoring trinomials, is to find two numbers whos sum is this and whos product…
Steven Gregory
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