The article illustrates our long term experience in teaching statistics for non-statisticians, especially for students of economics and humanities. The article is focused on some problems of the basic course that can weaken the interest in statistics or lead to false use of statistic methods.

Patterns are a ubiquitous phenomenon. They exist in nature's plant species emerging as a complete order from truncated matter. Patterns are also present in the fine arts where the aesthetic properties of form exist and conjugate through paintings and sculptures. Mathematical patterns, the focus of this position paper, dominate financial scenarios,…

This paper explores students' ways of thinking about the average rate of change of a multivariable function and how they generalize those ways of thinking from rate of change of single-variable functions. I found that while students thought about the average rate of change of a multivariable function as the change in the independent quantity with…

Underrepresentation of people of color in mathematics at the postsecondary level warrants more focus on equity issues. The prevalence of cognitive studies at the undergraduate level is met with the call for critical analysis about the kinds of knowledge that get privileged in mathematics education. Connecting to the Funds of Knowledge work, this…

Background/Context: Most community colleges across the country use a placement test to determine students' readiness for college-level coursework, yet these tests are admittedly imperfect instruments. Researchers have documented significant problems stemming from overreliance on placement testing, including placement error and misdiagnosis of…

This in practice paper describes the experience of seven lecturers in a hybrid and flipped version of an introductory mathematics course for higher education. In a Mexican university, lecturers adapted to this innovation supported by an adjusted Massive Open Online Course. The experience revealed the relevance of leaving conventional assessment…

Statewide policies can impact enrollment patterns of students. At one Texas University, 11th-grade Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills scores were predictive of success in students' first college-level mathematics course, but many students--those most at risk of failure--seem to have avoided taking a mathematics course in their first year at…

Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is widely used in modern university courses in many different fields. It can be used both in formative and summative assessments and with different emphasis on (self-)training, grading, and feedback generation. This article reports on experiences from using the CAA tool "JACK" to support a university…

In 2009, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) began the process of redesigning developmental mathematics (DMA) courses. The first classes were offered in 2012 with final state implementation in fall 2013. The purpose of this study was to examine the subsequent gateway course success rates achieved by former DMA students in relation…

This article describes a sequence of design research projects, some exploratory others more formal, on the teaching of modelling and the analysis of modelling skills. The initial motivation was the author's observation that the teaching of applied mathematics in UK high schools and universities involved no active modelling by students, but was…

Teaching mathematics by project-based learning (PBL) method on the use of educational technology offers an innovative teaching pedagogy at college. The "World Culture Art Created with Calculus Graphs of Equations" poster project was designed by the first author and was completed in the pilot Calculus course during the spring 2016…

Tutoring centres are common in universities in the United States, but there are few published studies that statistically examine the effects of tutoring on student success. This study utilizes multiple regression analysis to model the effect of tutoring attendance on final course grades in Calculus I. Our model predicted that every three visits to…

This study examined the extent to which student- and teacher-level characteristics in high school and college are associated empirically with high school students' college readiness and success in American Samoa. More specifically, multilevel ordinal logistic regressions were employed to understand the extent to which these characteristics predict…

On a typical day in a university precalculus classroom, as students arrive, they settle into their small groups and begin sharing their ideas and questions from the homework assigned the previous night. It can be quite challenging to create a learning environment in which students engage in mathematical thinking outside class and are prepared to…

Mathematics is not only a subject but it is also a language consisting of many different symbols and relations. Taught as a compulsory subject up the 10th class, students are then able to choose whether or not to study mathematics as a main subject. The present paper discusses mathematical modeling in mathematics education. The article provides…