Specifications grading is a version of mastery grading distinguished by giving students clear specifications that their work must meet, and grading most things pass/fail based on those specifications. Mastery grading systems can get quite elaborate, with hierarchies of objectives and various systems for rewriting and retesting. In this article I…

This article addresses the logistics of implementing projects in an undergraduate mathematics class and is intended both for new instructors and for instructors who have had negative experiences implementing projects in the past. Project implementation is given for both lower- and upper-division mathematics courses with an emphasis on mathematical…

It is no easy feat to engage young people with abstract material as well as push them to greater depths of understanding. Add in the extra pressures of curriculum expectations and standards and the problem is exacerbated. Projects designed around standards and having multiple entry points clearly offer students the best opportunity to engage with…

Teaching mathematics by project-based learning (PBL) method on the use of educational technology offers an innovative teaching pedagogy at college. The "World Culture Art Created with Calculus Graphs of Equations" poster project was designed by the first author and was completed in the pilot Calculus course during the spring 2016…

Although most calculus students are comfortable with the Cartesian equations of curves and surfaces, they struggle with the concept of parameters. A multivariable calculus course is really the time to nail this concept down, once and for all, since it provides an easy way to represent many beautiful and useful surfaces, and graph them using a…

This experiment was designed to determine which assessment method: continuous assessment (in the form of daily in-class quizzes), cumulative assessment (in the form of online homework), or project-based learning, best predicted student learning (dependent upon post-test grades) in an undergraduate mathematics course. Participants included 117…

We describe an ongoing collaborative curriculum materials development project between Sweet Briar College and Western Michigan University, with support from the National Science Foundation. We present a collection of modules under development that can be used in existing mathematics and biology courses, and we address a critical national need to…

Based on a sequence of number pairs, a recent paper (Mauch, E. and Shi, Y., 2005, Using a sequence of number pairs as an example in teaching mathematics, "Mathematics and Computer Education," 39(3), 198-205) presented some interesting examples that can be used in teaching high school and college mathematics classes such as algebra, geometry,…

Mathematical investigations pursued by two gifted students are presented. One is written by a boy age 9 with his follow-up at 11; he studied patterns to derive the factors for the difference of two squares. Another boy of 11 discovered formulas for slopes of tangent lines and areas under curves. (LS)

In Fall 2004, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) piloted a modeling-based approach to college algebra. This paper describes the course and an assessment that was conducted to determine the effect of this approach on student achievement in comparison to a traditional approach to college algebra. The results show that compared with their…

The Mobius strip, torus, and Klein bottle are used to graphically and analytically illustrate the differences between orientable and non-orientable surfaces. An exercise/laboratory project using the non-orientable Boy surface is included. (Contains 11 figures.)