Information for potential contributors to the Innovative Teaching Exchange

The purpose of the Innovative Teaching Exchange is to allow people teaching mathematics at the college level to share new methods they have tried, invented, or discovered, which they feel help the students learn better and/or more easily. The intention is to encourage more experimentation with more methods than the traditional lecture/questions method. The articles should be method-oriented, not content-oriented. That is, a new proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus should be sent to the "Classroom Capsules" section of the College Mathematics Journal, not here; while a new activity for students to participate in so that they come to an understanding of that theorem may be published in this Exchange. It is assumed that contributors to this Exchange are interested in helping others try their methods, and are therefore happy to provide more details when asked.

While MAA Online doesn't have the same space limitations that UME Trends did, READERS have a limited amount of time to spend reading an article. Therefore, authors are strongly encouraged to keep their articles within 750 words unless they genuinely feel that prevents them from communicating the idea. Each submission should contain a detailed description of the method, adequate for the reader to plan how he would use it in his classroom. It should include information about what size and level of course it has been tried and how well it has worked; what difficulties were encountered in using the method (especially ones which surprised the writer, and including difficulties with colleagues' skepticism of the method) and suggestions for overcoming those problems. Full addresses of authors, including e-mail address, should be included so that those wanting more details, or having questions about the method, can correspond directly with the author. Contributions should be sent electronically to Bonnie Gold, bgold@monmouth.edu. It is best if they're sent in the body of the message rather than as an attachment.