**Implementing Alternative Grading**
The Center for Grading Reform and the RIOS Institute are hosting a six-week Learning Community on alternative grading. Participants will apply a structured approach in a course. Prior familiarity and a target course required. Starts May 5: bit.ly/48J4sMF
Absolutely heartbreaking. So many mathematicians I know studied there, men AND women.
Maryam Mirzakhani studied there.
If this isn't enough to cancel/relocate from the US the International Congress of Mathematicians #ICM2026, nothing will be.
There are not "math people" and "not math people."
School math represents a sliver of mathematics as a discipline, and there is a lot more in there that the so called "not math people" could really dig and be good at.
Mathematics lives inside our biggest social questions. Data, percentages, and models can inform—or divide—depending on how we see them. What might it mean to develop a shared mathematical lens that helps us reason, question, and find common ground?
#MathEquity #iTeachMath #EduSky #Blusky
More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their field’s most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S.
His ideals for mathematical symbolisms were part of his broader scheme on mathematical logic which has commanded the lively admiration of modern logicians. With exuberant optimism LEIBNIZ prophesied the triumphal success of researches in this field in the famous affirmation (4): " I dare say that this is the last effort of the human mind, and, when this project shall have been carried out, all that men will have to do will be to be happy, since they will have an instrument that will serve to exalt the intellect, not less than the telescope serves to perfect their vision." (4) Quoted by A. PADOA in <<La Logique deductive>> Paris, 1912, p. 21
And here's the context for that quote, along with a source for it:
Quoted by A. PADOA in <<La Logique deductive>>, Paris, 1912, p. 21
Found that Leibniz quote in this paper:
Cajori, Florian. "Leibniz, the master-builder of mathematical notations." Isis 7.3 (1925): 412-429.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
"Leibniz wanted a much more algebraic, symbolic, notation-focused calculus [...]:
'I dare say that this is the last effort of the human mind, and when this project shall have been carried out, all that men will have to do will be to be happy.'
I mean, he sounds like an AI hype guy or something."
Strong recommendation to teaching faculty to just say no to this stuff, even if you are AI curious/enthusiastic. This is meant to reduce faculty autonomy and capture human labor with automation. You're selling out your future self and the profession as a whole. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...
Also loved this exchange:
"Q: You have a large corpus of published opinions and ideas. Have you been tempted to feed into an LLM the archive of your blog, podcast transcripts, your books, and so forth to see how AI Cal Newport performs?
A: I already have a great language model between my ears."
"We need to think about cognitive fitness the way we think about physical fitness. There should be a simple rule for being a thinker in an age of AI: Don’t let AI write anything for you. Writing is to cognitive health what steps are to physical health."
www.chronicle.com/article/is-a...
Any chance you can share a gift link to the article? Seems like my college library's access to NYT no longer works :/
I recall first learning it from Kate Owens, maybe in a blog post way back when?
Also found this podcast episode: thegradingpod.com/episodes/9-r...
Sounds good! Always happy to chat about puzzles 😊
Looking for more mathematical cryptic crossword clues? Check out this puzzle in the September issue of Math Horizons 😊
digitaleditions.sheridan.com/publication/...
I'm at this webinar right now about #RCV and Santa Claus just entered the chat !?!?
Despite the diversity of AI tools, their emergence into higher education reinforces the importance of process over product in learning and teaching. Few academics would say that our courses are fundamentally about exams, reports, and essays: we intend these products to be proxies for demonstrating an evolving process of learning. However, our learners often mistake our intentions because education systems and our culture put so much emphasis on grades and grading (Forsyth, Citation2022). The rise of AI provides a distinct opportunity for educators and institutions to explicitly make the case that learning requires critical engagement with productive failure; students cannot develop deep knowledge, skill, and judgment without struggle guided and supported by disciplinary and pedagogical experts. AI tools have the potential to augment that human work, if we resist the temptation of the “illusion of learning” by replacing human effort with technological gimmicks.
Great point about product vs. process in this book review on AI in education:
"Learning requires critical engagement with productive failure," but "learners often mistake our intentions because education systems and our culture put so much emphasis on grades"
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
My "Math, Revealed" series is freely available to anyone -- no paywall! -- in the thread below.
Whenever someone reports a percentage but not an absolute number, ask yourself why;
whenever someone reports an absolute number but not a percentage, ask yourself why
"Next semester, do less that means more"
Thinking about what this might mean for a calculus course. What can we do less of to make space for more meaningful learning experiences?
Her response: "10 is afraid of 11 'cause 11 8 3"
She has another one!
Q: Why was 7 afraid of 8?
A: Because 8 8 16!
My 7-year-old has made up something she calls an "equation joke":
Q: Why was 3 afraid of 5?
A: Because 5 8 13!
#TMWYK
My new #math series in the New York Times, "Math Revealed," is aimed at everyone, whether you love math or not. Have a look! You can read it here for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Today's example of Betteridge's Law of Headlines comes to us via the Boston Globe:
Trump says Harvard is teaching ‘remedial mathematics.’ Is there any truth to that?
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/08/n...
Explanation of Betteridge's Law:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteri...
And fun fact: that plaza at Boston City Hall is where I got to see Neutral Milk Hotel on their reunion tour a while back!
www.setlist.fm/setlist/neut...
Wean Hall on Carnegie Mellon University campus. Wide, brutalist, concrete building with windows.
Reminds me a lot of Wean Hall at CMU (which people also say resembles a turtle eating a cheeto!)
Did the idea of using Grade Point Median go anywhere? Do any schools actually do that already?
We lament that students are disengaged from the important parts of learning and yet here are professors modeling the same kind of disengagement. Where does this end? I'm very sympathetic to the problems of too many students, not enough time. Those were the circumstances for my entire career.