This month’s column is in response to
the emails I receive from time to time asking for a reference to
articles I have written for the MAA since I began on that
mathemaliterary journey back in 1991. (Yes, I just made that word up.
Google returns nothing. But it soon will.)
I first started writing monthly
articles for the MAA back in September 1991 when I took over as
editor of the Association’s monthly print magazine FOCUS. When I
stepped down as FOCUS editor in January 1996, the MAA launched its
website, and along with it Devlin’s Angle.
During that time, in addition to moving
from print to online, the MAA website went through two overhauls,
leaving the archives spread over three volumes:
January 1996 – December 2003
January 2004 – July 2011
August 2011 – present
Throughout those 23 years, I’ve
wandered far and wide across the mathematical and mathematics
education landscape. But three ongoing themes emerged. None of them
was planned. In each case, I simply wrote something that generated
interest – and for one theme considerable controversy – and as a
result I kept coming back to it.
I continue to receive emails asking
about articles I wrote on the first two of those three themes, and
the third is still very active. So I am devoting this month’s
column to providing an index to those three themes.
I’ll start with the most
controversial: what is multiplication? This began innocently enough,
with a throw-away final remark to a piece I wrote back in 2007. I
little knew the firestorm I was about to unleash.
What is Multiplication?
September 2007, What is conceptual
understanding?
June 2008, It Ain't No Repeated
Addition
July-August 2008, It's Still Not
Repeated Addition
September 2008, Multiplication and
Those Pesky British Spellings
December 2008, How Do We Learn Math?
January 2009, Should Children Learn
Math by Starting with Counting?
January 2010, Repeated Addition - One
More Spin
January 2011, What Exactly is
Multiplication?
November 2011, How multiplication is really defined in Peano arithmetic
Mathematical Thinking
I first started making the distinction
between mathematics and mathematical thinking in the early 1990s,
when an extended foray into mathematical linguistics and then
sociolinguistics led to an interest in mathematical cognition that
continues to this day.
April 1996, Are Mathematicians Turning
Soft?
October 1996, Wanted: A New Mix
September 1999, What Can Mathematics Do
For The Businessperson?
January 2008, American Mathematics in a
Flat World
February 2008, Mathematics for the
President and Congress
October 2009, Soft Mathematics
July 2010, Wanted: Innovative
Mathematical Thinking
September 2012, What is
mathematical thinking?
MOOCS
No introduction necessary. MOOCs are
constantly in the news. Though I was one of the early pioneers in
developing the Stanford MOOCs that generated all the media interest
in 2012, and I believe the first person to offer a mathematics MOOC
(Introduction to Mathematical Thinking), the idea goes back to a
course given at Athabasca University in Canada, back in 2008.
May 2012, Math MOOC – Coming this fall. Let’s Teach the World
November 2012, MOOC Lessons
December 2012, The Darwinization of
Higher Education
January 2013, R.I.P. Mathematics? Maybe.
February 2013, The Problem with Instructional Videos
March 2013, Can we make constructive use of machine-graded, multiple-choice questions in university mathematics education?
September 2013, Two Startups in One Week
More about MOOCs
In addition to the MOOC articles listed
above, I have also written articles about the topic in my own blog
MOOCtalk.org and for the Huffington Post. Here are the references:
MOOCTALK
An irregular series of posts starting
on May 5, 2012
HUFFINGTON POST
December 2013, MOQR, Anyone? Learning by Evaluating
March 2, 2013, MOOCs and the Myths of
Dropout Rates and Certification
March 27, 2013, Can Massive Open Online
Courses Make Up for an Outdated K-12 Education System?
August 19, 2013, MOOC Mania Meets the
Sober Reality of Education
November 18, 2013, Why MOOCs May Still
Be Silicon Valley's Next Grand Challenge
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/why-moocs-remain-silicon-_b_4289739.html