Popularizing Mathematics Education Through Bad Drawings A Review of Ben Orlin’s Math with Bad Drawings

From cover to cover, Ben Orlin’s Math with Bad Drawings is modest. By this we do not mean to suggest that the book underwhelms in its contributions to the popularization of mathematics. In fact, we take the exact opposite as true, and the commendations from prominent popularizers of mathematics such as Steven Strogatz, Hannah Fry, and John Urschel that are printed on the book jacket provide us ample evidence. By modest we mean the book cloaks its potent insights on mathematics and mathematics education in self-effacement. Of course, this modesty is entirely intentional, and employed by Orlin with pinpoint precision. As a result of his winsome trope, which developed from its early days on his blog, he manages to take a subject ignored by a large subsection of the population and unfurl it through his unique mixture of self-proclaimed “bad” drawings, quippy narrative, and acute insight into the intersections of mathematics, mathematics teaching, and society

Studying Flourishing and Non-Flourishing in Mathematics A Review of Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing with reflections by Christopher Jackson

Dr. Francis Su uses an autobiography (or a dual autobiography) to discuss an issue in mathematics: it is often non-flourishing. When crafting this Euler Book Prize winner, Su and his co-author, Christopher Jackson, drew on their own personal experiences to educate and inspire readers to want to do (and teach) mathematics

The Student Advice Recommender Agent: SARA

Abstract: SARA, the Student Advice Recommender Agent is a system somewhat like an early alert system, where predictive models of learners' success combined with incremental data on learners' activity in a course can be used to identify students in academic distress. With SARA, rather than give alerts to academic advisors or professors, we provide personalized advice directly to students. An advice string -"A note from SARA" is prepared for each student every week in a semester-long course. The system attempts to direct students to appropriate learning supports and resources according to their individual needs. We have observed a significant year over year improvement in unadjusted student grades after the SARA's advice recommender was implemented in a 1200-student freshman STEM course

Correction to: Flipping for success: evaluating the effectiveness of a novel teaching approach in a graduate level setting

Abstract Following publication of the original article [1], author 2 pointed out that his name has since changed from Adiba Islam to Adiba Ashrafi

Data-Driven Programmatic Change at Universities: What works and how

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present some of our recent experiences with a data visualization tool and offer some use cases where the visualization tool can potentially drive programmatic change in universities. The Ribbon Tool provides an interactive visualization of student flows through academic programs, progressing over time to either successful completion (graduation) or attrition. Through effective use of the Ribbon Tool by those who can effect curriculum change, their ability to generate persuasive arguments for change are enhanced. This paper presents some use cases and commentary on actual usage of the Ribbon Tool to call for programmatic change across a university