Snezana Lawrence

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Snezana Lawrence

• St. Edmunds Catholic School, Dover
• GATSBY fellowship 2004/5
• KS3 4 and the History of Mathematics

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Existing resources in the History of Maths for
KS3 4

• Majority aimed at university and post-graduate
  level
• Some can be used by teachers, but very
  time-consuming exercise if they do not have maths
  history training
• No way of telling of the accuracy of material
  because not peer assessed

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Divisions

• Primary resources sites
• Accumulative sites - ones that get built up over
  time (not necessarily primary resources but
  wealth of material)
• Mutating sites - ones that change regularly(and
  have or dont - archive of old material)
• List sites - with or without original material
• Purpose-made sites - for existing courses, or
  developed because of the special interest or
  expertise of the owner

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Primary resources site
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Primary resources site
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Primary resources site
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Primary resources site
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Accumulative sites
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Mutating sites
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List sites
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Purpose made sites
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Anything in between
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Few good examples

• All of the models mentioned could be used and/or
  combined
• Best sites already are not exclusively one or the
  other
• We can learn from sites that are concerned with
  the teaching of mathematics but not necessarily
  have any content in relation to the history of
  mathematics

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What will be used and how

• Primary resources sites (Gallica, Cornell
  University Library)
• List sites for further research (The Maths Forum
  _at_ Drexel)
• Purpose-made sites for existing courses at the
  universities worldwide
• Links to good printed sources

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Some guiding lights

• Internationalisation
• Understanding different cultural approaches
• Interdisciplinary approach
• Creative, intellectual fascination
• Schematising
• grabbing at the apparatus needed
• Elegance of old proofs/discoveries

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Some guiding lights 2

• Comparison and links with the arts
• De-trivialisation
• Studying old masters seeing yourself in the
  context of a creative tradition
• Aesthetic view and approach
• Development of intuition, induction and analogy
• Interdepndence

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Some guiding lights 3

• Story telling taking possession of the
  story/topic as their own
• Familiarity taking the torch to the next person
• Rather than large number of projects, worked out
  scheme, links, cross cultural and
  interdisciplinary approach (benefits for teachers
  as well as pupils).

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Structure of the web sitewww.mathsisgoodforyou.co
m

• MAIN PAGES - which set out the mathematical topic
  with links to
• National Curriculum
• Activities sheets
• Project Proposals
• Links pages for that particular topic
• Links to other topics
• Schema of the NC with links to topics
• Timeline with links to topics
• VISIT THE SITE IN OCTOBER!!!