In the spring of 2018, the Pomona College mathematics department hosted a community seminar on identity, culture, and power in the discipline and education of mathematics. The seminar was free and open to all students, faculty, and staff of the college. In this paper, I describe the specifics of the seminar, what types of issues we discussed, what…

In calculus courses, instructors often use the end-of-section problems in a textbook in homework assignments or other course assessments. As a result, these problems influence the teaching and learning of calculus. In this study, we examine the levels of cognitive demand of these problems in a mainstream calculus textbook and classify them within…

When first learning how to write mathematical proofs, it is often easier for students to work with statements using the universal quantifier. Results that single out special cases might initially come across as more puzzling or even mysterious. In this article we explore three specific statements from abstract algebra that involve the number…

We provide context and motivation for an instructor to use real-life examples in the calculus classroom. To this end we describe two specific project ideas, one related to the devastating impact of methylmercury fungicide in a grain seed supply and the other to a catastrophic methane leak. By using calculus in contexts that have social justice…

In recent years, I have cultivated an almost pathological resistance to grading. Here I explore the reasons why and describe how I eventually recovered. In particular, I propose that although grading, or more explicitly, effective assessment of student learning, is a challenging component of a mathematics instructor's job description, reflective…