Questions tagged [history]
For questions concerning the history of mathematical education and the use of historical topics in teaching mathematics.
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What female mathematician can I introduce to my High School students?
I enjoy talking about Pythagoras when I teach the Pythagorean theorem. I sometimes mention Descartes when introducing Cartesian coordinates. And Leibniz and Newton are mentioned in many calculus ...
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What was the problem with New Math? Why did it end?
During the 60s, people in the US (and also in Europe), school curricula introduces New Math where students began with set theory in the first grade before learning to perform addition or ...
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Would taking 5 minutes to explain the history behind a mathematical idea help stimulate learning the idea?
I read a paper in my "Research Issues in Mathematical Education" class that I have applied to the Undergraduate Calculus I and Calculus II class that I teach. I take five minutes to explain the ...
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When did US mathematics programs start failing to prepare incoming students for books like "Baby" Rudin?
I've seen in a lot of questions about "which textbook to use for intro analysis", and inevitably Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis comes up, with the (almost cliche) rejoinder that "today's ...
user5661
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Correcting how a student writes symbols
One of my college students writes the Greek letter $\pi$ as a script n with a bar over it, like $\bar{n}$. [There is actual space between the letter and the bar.] I have never seen this before, and ...
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Historical tidbits to liven up calculus classes
What are some examples of math history that can be mentioned in calculus classes, either to liven things up or to provide additional perspective / insight on the material being learned?
For example, ...
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When did the American school system's progression of math classes take its current form?
In the United States, secondary education students generally progress through pre-algebra courses, then algebra, Euclidean geometry, more algebra/trigonometry, then calculus or statistics.
I am ...
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Why are $m$ and $b$ used in the slope-intercept equation of a line?
The slope-intercept form of the equation of a line is often presented in textbooks (in the US) as
$$y = mx + b\,,$$
where $m$ is the slope of the line and $b$ is the $y$-intercept. How did $m$ and $...
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Hands on activities for a college history of mathematics course
I will be teaching a course in history of mathematics to juniors/seniors who are math and math education majors, many future school teachers. It should include highlights from antiquity to early 19-th ...
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Teaching the History of Mathematics in High School
Is any time being spent on the history of mathematics in high school classes today?
Few observations as a student -
I had to discover Cantor many years after I was introduced to set theory.
I had ...
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Historically Motivating Concepts
I have been reading this site for a while, and was glad to find an entire tag devoted to "concept motivation," which is currently my area of interest.
However, my particular focus has not been ...
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Would a 1990's educated person need additional content knowledge to tutor high school mathematics today?
Have there been any major content (not pedagogical) changes in the basic US high school mathematics curriculum since the mid-1990's? More specifically, if I wanted to become a tutor of high school ...
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SMSG: Did any school districts actual teach the curriculum as planned and what were the results for the teachers and students?
I was introduced to the SMSG math curriculum at Topeka High School between 1965 and 1966. my recollection (somewhat defective for medical reasons) was that the Topeka (KS) school system rolled the ...
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Why is polynomial factorization over the integers part of secondary school curricula?
By "polynomial factorization over the integers", I mean problems and solutions like the following:
Problem:
Find a factorization into irreducible polynomials for
$24x^2 +x - 10$ and
...
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Was math education following a western trend?
After some research on the recent history of math education in the U.S., from the new math movement to the beginning of the 21st century, I understood that the historic flow of the math education ...
