Teaching Mathematics with a Historical Perspective

The difficulty of both learning and teaching math is evident in its history. The struggle of early research mathematicians who developed and formalized a topic parallels the struggle of students and teachers in the modern classroom. Students learning about the concept of limits and series undergo a similar process as the pioneers of calculus did when they developed the subject. Archimedes, Zeno, Cavalieri, Newton, Leibniz, and Cauchy had to find or invent structure. This struggle goes on today, as new flavors of calculus are developed and studied. Each week, this course considers a different math subject and gives an overview as well as discusses some core results in that area.