This paper is a practical how-to guide to help you start using active learning or to have greater success and more fun with it. We categorize active learning techniques as Think, Pair, Share, Composite, Group, Move, or Lead and discuss how to implement activities in each category, along with advice on creating engaging, effective, and equitable…

This paper shares a flexible activity for engaging people in mathematical inquiry that does not depend on fixed prior knowledge built on a famous property of Möbius strips. The discussion includes the implementation of the activity and its extensions, facilitator moves and common participant thinking, suggestions for adaptation and integration…

In this reflection of teaching, we describe a series of activities that introduce the Taylor series through dynamic visual representations with explicit connections to students' prior learning. Over the past several decades, educators have noted that curricular materials tend to present the Taylor series in a way that students often interpret as…

In this paper, we invite the reader to think deeply about professional development opportunities for faculty. The focus of this professional development is to improve teaching and learning by including more inquiry in the mathematics classroom. Building on theories of teaching and learning, we develop the idea of "teaching procedures"…

Historically, math education at the high school and introductory college levels has focused on computational skills. With the advancement of computational technologies, problemsolving and other higher-order thinking skills should become the focal point. This article discusses ways in which the University of Minnesota has integrated problem-solving…

We describe a lecture-free problem-solving Mathematical Communication and Reasoning (MCR) course that helps students succeed in the Introduction to Advanced Mathematics course. The MCR course integrates elements from Uri Treisman's Emerging Scholars workshop model and Math Circles. In it students solve challenging problems and form a supportive…

Nationwide, many students fail to complete the key mathematics courses that are required for most STEM majors, including Precalculus. This paper describes the rationale, implementation, and impact of the redesign of Precalculus at one regional west coast institution. Prior to the redesign, pass rates in Precalculus were modest (75.8% of all…

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a cooperative learning strategy blending elements of flipped learning, inquiry-based learning, and problem-based learning. Although used quite frequently in other disciplines, use of this strategy in mathematics has been limited. In this article, we describe how TBL can be implemented in math courses with adherence to…

Faculty professional development is an important lever for change in supporting instructors to adopt research-based instructional strategies that engage students intellectually, foster learning-supportive attitudes and habits of mind, and strengthen their persistence in mathematics. Yet the literature contains few well-rationalized models for…

Collegiate mathematics instructors are moving away from traditional lecture-based teaching practices to accommodate the pedagogies that support more active student learning. As part of the movement, groupwork has been increasingly implemented. At the same time, mathematics classrooms have become increasingly diverse and also in the distribution of…

We discuss two proof evaluation activities meant to promote the acquisition of learning behaviors of professional mathematics within an introductory undergraduate proof-writing course. These learning behaviors include the ability to read and discuss mathematics critically, reach a consensus on correctness and clarity as a group, and verbalize what…

In this note, we describe a large-scale transition to an active learning format in first-semester calculus at the University of Florida. Student performance and attitudes are compared across traditional lecture and flipped sections.

Over the past 9 years, we have implemented, developed, and refined a novel student-centered teaching method called Extreme Apprenticeship in university mathematics context. In this paper, we report the theoretical orientation behind the method, as well as its practical implementation. We also reflect on our experiences gained from using it in our…

The Mathematics Department at Cornell University has recently secured a grant from the University to implement systemic change in how we teach courses that reach students at critical transition points in their mathematical development. In this article, we report on the changes made to our large multi-section first-semester calculus course in order…

Our department is in the early stages of a multi-year effort to nurture a culture that values active learning. We focus on the change process, including specific, pragmatic ideas from the literature on grassroots leadership and systemic change. We briefly review Wenger's work on cultivating communities of practice and use Wenger's evaluation of…