Integrating History in Math

Throughout elementary and high school I had never wondered about the origins of mathematics, even though I have been doing mathematics as long as I can remember. I think that it is very important for young students to learn about the origins of mathematics, as it will help them with understanding why exactly they are being taught it. I feel as though the origins of mathematics should be taught as apart of history class, along with Babylon and Mesopotamia. It is important for students to understand why they are learning concepts and I believe that being taught the history of mathematics will achieve this. I also think that it would be very interesting to see the methods used by people in the past, like how they made transactions, how they collected payments, etc. Learning these things would help keep students engaged and help them understand why they are doing mathematics and it's importance in history.

Something that stood out to me in the article was a few of the ideas and examples for classroom implementation of math history. More specifically, "Plays", "The worldwide web", and "films and other visual means". These stood out to me because when thinking about ways that I would implement math history into the classroom, these methods came to my mind. I think that using visual forms such as films and plays are extremely important with younger students especially. I think that younger students tend to pay more attention when watching films or plays, so I feel like these would be an effective means of teaching Math History. I think that utilizing the internet would also be effective for primary/high school students. Things like research projects or presentations would be great for encouraging students to do their own independent research and present it to their peers.

Reading this article confirmed to me the importance of teaching math history to students in high school and elementary school. When reflecting on my own education, we never really knew where math came from and did not go in-depth about its history at all. 

Comments

  1. AmandaDecember 17, 2019 at 10:28 PM

    This is a nice reflection on your own education and the history of mathematics.

    ReplyDelete

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