PICS: Math From Many Angles, A Philosophy of Math Teaching

[Ryan Goble]

This is from Mathwithbaddrawings.com - fun interesting post:

And what do I mean by “many angles”? I mean that, in our best moments, my students and I come at these ideas like undergraduates approaching a dessert buffet: relentlessly, purposefully, and from all sides.

First: the historical angle. Even when the names-and-dates history doesn’t fit into my lesson plans, I try to contextualize each idea as part of a long lineage, to show how it answers a question, unlocks a door, fills a hole. I want my students to see each idea as one scene in a grand narrative of mathematical discovery.

Second: the verbal angle. English class isn’t the “opposite” of math class, as too many students think. Rather, good language skills empower us to discuss ideas of all types and stripes, especially mathematical ones. A precise and evocative vocabulary is beyond precious. Language allows us to debate productively, to learn as a collective, to think as a team.

Third: the scientific angle. Math’s most explosive ideas send shockwaves throughout the sciences. Physics, obviously—but also economics, biology, geology, chemistry, even psychology and sociology. Math has a symbiotic relationship with the sciences: it furnishes them with a powerful toolkit, and they provide it with concrete examples, a corporeal form for its abstracted soul.

Read the full blog HERE.