6 research outputs found
On definitions of "mathematician"
The definition of who is or what makes a ``mathematician" is an important and
urgent issue to be addressed in the mathematics community. Too often, a
narrower definition of who is considered a mathematician (and what is
considered mathematics) is used to exclude people from the discipline -- both
explicitly and implicitly. However, using a narrow definition of a
mathematician allows us to examine and challenge systemic barriers that exist
in certain spaces of the community. This paper explores and illuminates
tensions between narrow and broad definitions and how they can be used to
promote both inclusion and exclusion simultaneously. In this article, we
present a framework of definitions based on identity, function, and
qualification and exploring several different meanings of ``mathematician". By
interrogating various definitions, we highlight their risks and opportunities,
with an emphasis on implications for broadening and/or narrowing participation
of underrepresented groups.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figure
Improving applied mathematics education
This book presents various contemporary topics in applied mathematics education and addresses both interested undergraduate instructors and STEM education researchers. The diverse set of topics of this edited volume range from analyzing the demographics of the United States mathematics community, discussing the teaching of calculus using modern tools, engaging students to use applied mathematics to learn about and solve problems of global significance, developing a general education course for humanities and social sciences students that features applications of mathematics, and describing local mathematical modeling competitions and their use in providing authentic experiences for students in applying mathematics to real world situations. The authors represent diversity along multiple dimensions of difference: race, gender, institutional affiliation, and professional experience
Predictive Models of Student College Commitment Decisions Using Machine Learning
Every year, academic institutions invest considerable effort and substantial resources to influence, predict and understand the decision-making choices of applicants who have been offered admission. In this study, we applied several supervised machine learning techniques to four years of data on 11,001 students, each with 35 associated features, admitted to a small liberal arts college in California to predict student college commitment decisions. By treating the question of whether a student offered admission will accept it as a binary classification problem, we implemented a number of different classifiers and then evaluated the performance of these algorithms using the metrics of accuracy, precision, recall, F-measure and area under the receiver operator curve. The results from this study indicate that the logistic regression classifier performed best in modeling the student college commitment decision problem, i.e., predicting whether a student will accept an admission offer, with an AUC score of 79.6%. The significance of this research is that it demonstrates that many institutions could use machine learning algorithms to improve the accuracy of their estimates of entering class sizes, thus allowing more optimal allocation of resources and better control over net tuition revenue
The Mathematics of Mathematics: Using Mathematics and Data Science to Analyze the Mathematical Sciences Community and Enhance Social Justice
We present and discuss a curated selection of recent literature related to
the application of quantitative techniques, tools, and topics from mathematics
and data science that have been used to analyze the mathematical sciences
community. We engage in this project with a focus on including research that
highlights, documents, or quantifies (in)equities that exist in the
mathematical sciences, specifically, and STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics) more broadly. We seek to enhance social justice
in the mathematics and data science communities by providing numerous examples
of the ways in which the mathematical sciences fails to meet standards of
equity, equal opportunity and inclusion. We introduce the term ``mathematics of
Mathematics" for this project, explicitly building upon the growing,
interdisciplinary field known as ``Science of Science" to interrogate,
investigate, and identify the nature of the mathematical sciences itself. We
aim to promote, provide, and posit sources of productive collaborations and we
invite interested researchers to contribute to this developing body of work.Comment: 18 pages, comments welcome
Data for Quantifying and Documenting Inequities in PhD-granting Mathematical Sciences Departments in the United States
Data and code for the paper "Quantifying and Documenting Inequities in PhD-granting Mathematical Sciences Departments in the United States