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208 votes
72 answers
51k views

What are your favorite instructional counterexamples?

Related: question #879, Most interesting mathematics mistake. But the intent of this question is more pedagogical. In many branches of mathematics, it seems to me that a good counterexample can be ...
160 votes
28 answers
30k views

How to present mathematics to non-mathematicians?

(Added an epilogue) I started a job as a TA, and it requires me to take a five sessions workshop about better teaching in which we have to present a 10 minutes lecture (micro-teaching). In the last ...
424 votes
93 answers
149k views

Video lectures of mathematics courses available online for free

It can be difficult to learn mathematics on your own from textbooks, and I often wish universities videotaped their mathematics courses and distributed them for free online. Fortunately, some ...
87 votes
33 answers
24k views

Parodies of abstruse mathematical writing

Perhaps under the influence of a recent question on perverse sheaves, in conjunction with the impending $\pi$-day (3/14/15 at 9:26:53), I recalled a long-ago parody of abstruse mathematical language ...
74 votes
51 answers
28k views

An example of a beautiful proof that would be accessible at the high school level?

The background of my question comes from an observation that what we teach in schools does not always reflect what we practice. Beauty is part of what drives mathematicians, but we rarely talk about ...
48 votes
12 answers
10k views

How to explain to an engineer what algebraic geometry is?

This question is similar to this one in that I'm asking about how to introduce a mathematical research topic or activity to a non-mathematician: in this case algebraic geometry, intended as the most ...
40 votes
21 answers
16k views

Journals for undergraduates

Are there math journals that are aimed for undergraduates? I don't mean here journals where students can publish their papers, but journals that publish introductory articles that an undergraduate can ...
25 votes
11 answers
5k views

Learning through guided discovery

I have been working through Kenneth P. Bogart's "Combinatorics Through Guided Discovery". You can download it from this page: http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/news-resources/electronic/kpbogart/ I've ...