Welcome to the Math 190 class website for the Fall 2026 quarter. Here, you will find:
- the course details and policies in the syllabus
- a weekly schedule with class topics and due dates
- a description and grading scheme for all assignments in the rubrics
Along with this website, we will use Canvas, where you will be able to submit assignments, view your grades, access the readings, and read class announcements. If you ever have any questions, please reach out to me and I will answer as promptly as I can. I look forward to the quarter!
Note. Details of the class are subject to change, and all important adjustments will be announced. In particular, the schedule is not finalized past the first four weeks, though all assignment due dates are fixed. If you see any errors, inconsistencies, or anything on this website that should be updated, please let me know.
Logistics
- Meetings
- Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 1:30 - 2:20 PM in room 380-381T
- Instructor
- Romain Speciel (rspeciel@stanford.edu)
- Teaching assistant
- Talia Blum (taliab@stanford.edu)
- Office hours
- By appointment
- Credit
- 3 units, fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement
- Workload
- Up to six hours of homework per week. All submissions are due before noon on the stated day.
Throughout, we denote Class Y of Week X by Class X.Y. Homework X.Y is due before noon on the day of Class X.Y.
Acknowledgements
I am sincerely grateful to Tara Abrishami, Christine Alfano, Lernik Asserian, Talia Blum, Otis Chodosh, Brian Conrad, Marvin Diogenes, Persis Drell, Shintaro Fushida-Hardy, Josef Greilhuber, Kevin Hartnett, Anne-Catherine Higham, Lisa Higham, Kenji Ikemoto, Audrey Kearns, Bryna Kra, Andrew Lee, Rafe Mazzeo, Siobhan Roberts, Grant Sanderson, Leila Sloman, Eric Speciel, Aaryan Sukhadia, Sandra Takei, Tadashi Tokieda, Ravi Vakil, and Carl Wieman for their generous help and advice in the design process of this class. The development of this class was supported in part by a Course and Curriculum Grant from the AI in Teaching and Learning at Stanford program, announced here. I sketched the illustrations after works at the Musée National Picasso-Paris.
For instructors at other institutions
If you are an instructor interested in modern approaches to teaching mathematical communication, feel free to contact me to ask questions about this class, request a copy of the teaching handbook, or simply engage in conversations about this project.