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After a year of remote algebra, Diego Fonseca struggled with advanced algebra. Despite a week at George Mason University's Math Boot Camp, the would-be computer science major failed the math placement test to qualify for calculus four times. He didn't know the basics. Across the country, more students are placing into pre-college math, reports AP's Collin Binkley. "At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents." At George Mason in Northern Virginia, fewer would-be STEM majors are getting into calculus and more are failing, he writes. “We’re talking about college-level pre-calculus and calculus classes, and...

But the one-semester class has gone full-time because of “strong demand from students to make this a year-long course,” Peng said. Peng’s course has been such a hit that state lawmakers are considering making it mandatory, statewide. What grabbed Peng’s eye in 2021 was an editorial in the school paper written by Anisha Singhal, who asked, “Calculus Before Checkbooks?” When Peng introduced the class in 2022, it was so popular that even Singhal ended up on a waitlist to get in. The class covers mortgages, tax returns, student loans, and more. Singhal said that “If there was an empty seat...

At an American Mathematical Society meeting, high school students presented a proof of the Pythagorean theorem that used trigonometry—an approach that some once considered impossibleTwo high school students have proved the Pythagorean theorem in a way that one early 20th-century mathematician thought was impossible: using trigonometry. Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, both at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, announced their achievement last month at an American Mathematical Society meeting. “It’s an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing like it, being able to do something that ... people don’t think that young people can do,” Johnson told WWL-TV, a...

Successful completion of high school calculus has long been an unofficial must-have for those seeking admission to the nation’s top colleges: The course has, for decades, served as a signal to admissions officers that a student’s coursework has been robust. But some in education say it’s time to reconsider this de facto requirement: Many schools — particularly those serving large numbers of Black, Hispanic or low-income students — don’t offer the course. And even when they do, it’s of dubious value, they say. “High school calculus is a complete waste of time and a form of torture,” said Alan Garfinkel,...

When Rebecca Pariso agreed to join a team of educators she said she expected some controversy. “We were transforming math education, and change is hard and scary,” said Pariso, a math teacher at Hueneme Elementary School District. “Especially if you don’t understand why that change needs to occur. But I didn’t expect it to go this far.” Every eight years, a group of educators comes together to update the state’s math curriculum framework. This particular update has attracted extra attention, and controversy, because of perceived changes it makes to how “gifted” students progress — and because it pushes Algebra 1...

CHANG HSU's PORNHUB PAGE A Taiwanese math teacher's decision to do "special things in special places" to attract students' attention by posting classes on an adult video website has paid off with nearly 2 million views. Chang Hsu (張旭), a former cram school teacher, has gained worldwide attention by posting his calculus classes on the Canadian-owned internet pornography website Pornhub. His page "Play Hard Study Hard!" has gained 6,900 subscribers, and his 271 videos have racked up 1,883,947 total views. Chang told CNA that he started to teach in cram schools after graduating from high school. The 34-year-old said that...

California Tries to Close the Gap in Math, but Sets Off a Backlash Proposed guidelines in the state would de-emphasize calculus, reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted and build a connection to social justice. Critics say math shouldn’t be political. But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education. The...

All students deserve powerful mathematics; we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents," reads a bulletpoint in chapter one of the framework. "The belief that 'I treat everyone the same' is insufficient: Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities." The entire second chapter of the framework is about connecting math to social justice concepts like bias and racism:

Public schoolsIn the Name of Equity, California Will Discourage Students Who Are Gifted at MathThe new framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same level for as long as possible. Robby Soave | 5.4.2021 1:39 PM California's Department of Education is working on a new framework for K-12 mathematics that discourages gifted students from enrolling in accelerated classes that study advanced concepts like calculus.The draft of the framework is hundreds of pages long and covers a wide range of topics. But its overriding concern is inequity. The department is worried that too many students are sorted into different math...

West Point has expelled eight cadets and held 51 back a year after 73 were accused in the military academy's biggest cheating scandal in more than four decades. The cadets were accused of cheating on an online freshman calculus exam in May while students were studying remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic. An investigation was launched after instructors noticed irregularities in answers. All but one were freshmen, or plebes, in a class of 1,200. The other was a sophomore. West Point said that of the 73 cases investigated by the cadet honor committee, six cadets resigned during the investigation, four...

Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, spokesman for the academy at West Point, said Monday that 73 cadets were accused of cheating on the calculus exam in May after instructors noticed irregularities in answers. All but one were freshmen, or plebes, in a class of 1,200. The other was a sophomore. After an investigation by an honors committee made up of trained cadets, two cases were dropped for lack of evidence and four were dropped because the cadets resigned, Ophardt said. Of the remaining 67 cases, 55 cadets have admitted cheating and have been enrolled in a six-month rehabilitation program focused on...

More than 70 West Point cadets are embroiled in the academy's worst cheating scandal in over four decades. Seventy-three cadets were caught cheating on a mathematics exam after all of them made the same error on their calculus final back in May. It's not immediately clear how the cadets - 72 of whom were first-year students at the time - cheated on the test, which was administered remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. Of those who allegedly cheated on the test, 58 have admitted to doing so, leading to disciplinary action.

This week, WBC fellow Jonathan Bartlett, along with co-author Asatur Zh. Khurshudyan, published a paper showing that elementary calculus contains a longstanding flaw that has been present for over a century. The paper was published in the peer-reviewed journal Dynamics of Continuous, Discrete & Impulsive Systems, Series A: Mathematical Analysis: Mathematical Analysis (DCDIS-A, for short). The journal has been published for a quarter of a century and many major universities across the United States subscribe to it. The flaw they discovered is one of notation. Now, you may be thinking, how can notation be wrong? Well, notation can be wrong...

Abacus is a Latin word meaning sand tray. The word originates with the Arabic "abq", which means dust or fine sand. In Greek this would become abax or abakon which means table or tablet... Probably, the first device was the counting board. This appeared at various times in several places around the world. The earliest counting boards consisted of a tray made of sun dried clay or wood. A thin layer of sand would be spread evenly on the surface, and symbols would be drawn in the sand with a stick or ones finger. To start anew, one would simply...

JAY LENO: When you help your daughters with their homework, is there a subject you struggle with? PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the math stuff I was fine with up until 7th grade. But Malia is now a freshman in High School and I'm pretty lost. It's tough. Fortunately, they are great students on their own. And if something doesn't work I'll call over to the Department of Energy to see if they have a physicist to come over!

The rigors of teaching apparently got to Michigan State University professor John McCarthy Monday. According to multiple sources, the math teacher stripped naked in the middle of his Calculus 1 class and started shouting obscenities.

** EXCERPT ** Barack Obama is indignant at Hillary Clinton's suggestion he serve as her vice president. Fair enough. He's still better positioned to win this thing. He'd better hope that remains true, though, since about the only thing worse than losing the nomination to Mrs. Clinton would be having to decide whether to take up her offer. There's good reason the Hillary and Bill vice-presidential talk is coming at this particular moment. With her Texas and Ohio victories, she's still in the game. But she's behind in the delegate count and, barring some extraordinary event, will remain so. Her...

Two British researchers challenged the conventional history of mathematics in June when they reported having evidence that the infinite series, one of the core concepts of calculus, was first developed by Indian mathematicians in the 14th century. They also believe they can show how the advancement may have been passed along to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who are credited with independently developing the concept some 250 years later... historian of mathematics George Gheverghese Joseph of the University of Manchester, who conducted the research with Dennis Almeida of the University of Exeter... says that no one has yet firmly...

A long-lost text by the ancient Greek mathematician shows that he had begun to discover the principles of calculus. ~~~snip~~~ An intensive research effort over the last nine years has led to the decoding of much of the almost-obliterated Greek text. The results were more revolutionary than anyone had expected. The researchers have discovered that Archimedes was working out principles that, centuries later, would form the heart of calculus and that he had a more sophisticated understanding of the concept of infinity than anyone had realized. ~~~~snip~~~~

A former university academic dean, I know of hard-nosed Calculus professors who started off their introductory class by saying to the students, “Look at the person to the right of you and the one to left of you.” Then they continued, “One of you is going to fail this class.” Then to add hard evidence, the professors asked for a show of hands of those who were taking Calculus for the first time, next they would ask how many were taking it for the second time, and finally how many were taking it for the third time. By this...