Blog Post #1: Why teach math history?

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Prior to reading the article, I believed it was important to incorporate math history into my own math teaching. The reason for this is that I believe incorporating math history increases the chance that students might connect with the material being taught. When there’s a story to go along with it, they may understand how the concept came to be, why it was important at the time and why it is still used today. Alternatively, the student may just like an anecdote about the mathematician who discovered a formula, algorithm etc. In my opinion, anything that draws a student nearer to math in any way is an important avenue to pursue.

The article itself included many interesting ideas that I would like to explore further. One of the points that resonated the most with me was to include material from different cultures, not only to provide a connection with students from that heritage, but also to build respect for different cultures in general. I had never thought of it in that light before because I was more focused on what could be done to bring prominent mathematicians from different cultures as role models that students from that culture could relate to. Another point that stood out to me was the concept of “teaching sequence” as opposed to historical sequence of events. Of course, the benefit to this method would be to provide a more straightforward introduction to a concept but what I wondered was if it defeated the purpose of introducing the history at all. In other words, wouldn’t students disengage if they realized that they weren’t moving through events as they happened in human history?

After reading the article, I had a stronger sense of how to incorporate math history into my lessons, and a shift in understanding of what it actually means to do so. Prior to reading, I was focused more on telling stories about prominent mathematicians and their contribution to the field but I realized that the evolution of concepts is another facet of history. In my opinion, it also seems to be a more useful and applicable one for in a classroom setting. One idea I would really like to try is the “prototype equation” method in which starting from basic forms of a formula or equation could help provide some context as to how the refined version came to be and what it actually represents. Another idea I’d like to try is having historical packages. From their description, they seem to have the potential to lead to interesting discussions as well as serve as a good activity to change up the regular class routine. One thing I wouldn’t like to try is the exploration of errors. I’m sure there are teachers out there that would be able to successfully lead a lesson or activity on this, but I myself find spending time on incorrect findings stressful and frustrating so I wouldn’t be able to inspire students to gain useful knowledge out of their exploration.