Math Memes, Post 1. Memeifying Math.
For many years, I have been using memes in my lectures. There are two main purposes for this. Firstly, they add a bit of humor to the class, something which can make a huge difference when dealing with first-year students, or when dealing with dry material. Secondly, they allow me to test if the students have understood what we have just covered. In particular, they can provide an excellent, very quick, low-effort diagnostic test, which has the added benefit of bringing fun to the classroom. In comparison to “mini-tests”, I have noticed that students have been a lot more open about not understanding a meme than they ever were about not being able to complete, or making mistakes on, a mini-test. They seem to somehow class this “failure” as more acceptable
Obviously, memes will never take the place of more conventional diagnostic tests, you simply don’t get enough data from the students’ responses, but they are much easier to sprinkle in throughout the course, rather than having to plan out time for other forms of comprehension testing.
With this in mind, here are a few of my favorite math memes, I hope you enjoy them.
1. Composition of functions
