Math Professors Blog about Active Learning

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – A Middlebury College mathematics professor is co-editing a math education blog that has just posted a six-part series on the topic of active learning in mathematics.

Priscilla Bremser, the Nathan Beman professor of mathematics, said interest in active learning has been growing over the past 20 years due in large part to recent research in the science of learning. The series on the American Mathematical Society’s blog was a response to a 2014 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that analyzed 225 different studies and concluded that active learning “increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.”

Bremser and her four co-editors define active learning as “any instructional method that engages students in the learning process [by requiring them] to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing.”

The six-part series was developed collaboratively by the Middlebury professor and Benjamin Braun at University of Kentucky, Art Duval at University of Texas at El Paso, Elise Lockwood at Oregon State University, and Diana White at University of Colorado at Denver. Working together as an editorial board, the five mathematicians jury and publish about three articles a month designed “to stimulate reflection and dialogue by providing mathematicians with high-quality commentary and resources for teaching and learning.”

Their blog titled “On Teaching and Learning Mathematics” has attracted more than 121,000 unique page views since its launch in the summer of 2014.

– Photo by Bob Handelman