In early November 2013, the authors started talking about visiting the Hurley School, a dual-language school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hurley School had spent considerable time transitioning to the Common Core State Standards on literacy, but little time addressing the shifts in math. They worried that math classes were no longer rigorous…

Studies in cognitive science have verified that working memory (where the brain solves problems) can manipulate nearly all elements of knowledge that can be recalled automatically from long-term memory, but only a few elements that have not previously been well memorized. Research in reading comprehension has found that "lecture notes with…

Research over the past few decades points to ways precalculus and calculus courses can be strengthened to improve student learning in these courses. This research has informed the development of the Algebra and Precalculus Concept Readiness (APCR) and the Calculus Concept Readiness (CCR) assessments. In this article, the authors present three…

How can geometry teachers design great tasks that allow students to make connections among interrelated concepts and expand their geometric reasoning skills? Many curricular materials provide problems for students to apply a single geometric concept. However, these problems do not always promote reasoning opportunities for students, because…

It is now increasingly recognized that mathematics is not a neutral value-free subject. Rather, mathematics can challenge students' taken-for-granted realities and promote action. This article describes two issues, namely deforestation and income inequality. These were specifically chosen because they can be related to a range of calculus concepts…

Interest on the part of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) Board of Directors in the development of a set of descriptions of the core competencies for AACRAO professions goes back several years, with more active discussion beginning in 2011 under the leadership of AACRAO President Nora McLaughlin. At…

Showing early indicators of increased graduation rates and college readiness among students of color and low-income students, Linked Learning has the potential to be even more impactful when integrated with Common Core and other new California standards. This report examines promising strategies being employed at nine California school districts.…

Quite a number of interesting problems in probability feature an event with probability equal to 1/e. This article discusses three such problems and attempts to explain why this probability occurs with such frequency.

The method of "Double False Position" is an arithmetic approach to solving linear equations that pre-dates current algebraic methods by more than 3,000 years. The method applies to problems that, in algebraic notation, would be expressed as y = L(x), where L(x) is a linear function of x. Double False Position works by evaluating the described…

Diophantine equations constitute a rich mathematical field. This article may be useful as a basis for a student math club project. There are several situations in which one needs to find a solution of indeterminate polynomial equations that allow the variables to be integers only. These indeterminate equations are fewer than the involved unknown…

In the United States, people's collective definitions, perceptions, and myths about creativity have, at best, produced an uneven understanding of what it means to be a creative person. This article aims to clarify meanings associated with the broad term "creativity" and identify some observable processes associated with it. Part of the problem in…

A physics teacher assigns problems to his or her students not to keep them indoors during sunny days, but to strengthen and deepen their understanding of the universe. Every problem has not only an answer, but also a "moral to the story"--a reason why that question and that answer are interesting and probing. It is an unfortunate fact that our…

The problem of a ladder leaning on a wall has been a staple of introductory physics for years. It is discussed in numerous physics textbooks and in journals. Now, it even has an Internet presence. Postings from students seek help for "ladder on a wall" problems. A quick review of those postings would show that they all deal with frictionless…

Norwood Elementary, a Title I science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) school in Baltimore County, MD, recently realized that traditional behavior management programs and processes were not working with their students. Over time, school administrators discovered more successful approaches, and restorative practices became the way to…

In this article, middle school mathematics teacher Jennifer Zakrzewski describes how she successfully incorporated iPads and Apple TV (for projection of iPad screens) into her classroom while having her students solve a problem about mangoes. As Zakrzewski began a unit on multiplying and dividing fractions, she chose to start with the Mangoes…