Developmental Math Workshop

January 20, 2005 (held at UW Fox Valley)

History of Mathematics – Practical Presentations for the Developmental Student

DeeAnn Dewitt, UW Fox Valley

DeeAnn has been taking some courses of her own, including history of mathematics at UW Oshkosh. She shared her experiences with the class and some insights on how historical mathematics might be used as a teaching aid in a developmental math classroom. We got to work with sexagesimal notation in the Mesopotamian number system (cuneiform numbers) and with Chinese rod numerals, which use place values.

She also gave us several interesting facts about the Pythagorean Theorem through history. You’ll have to read more or take your own history of math course to learn more.