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Using Women’s Stories to Share Alternative Mathematical Experiences in a First-Year Seminar

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

Abstract: From 2013-2016, I taught a seminar for first-year liberal arts students, The Mathematical Experience, that blended an introduction to number theory, topology, and group theory with an examination of mathematics as a field of study. The course used the stories of women mathematicians to counter popular narratives about the field such as the mathematician as a gifted loner, math as a `young man’s game’, and math as a realm of complete objectivity. These stories served as a launching pad for important discussions and helped students to develop a a more positive view of mathematics. In this talk, I will describe how women’s stories were integrated into the course design and provide evidence that putting women `into the equation’ helped to improve student attitudes and understanding. <br/><br/> About the speaker: Sarah Mayes-Tang is a mathematics educator and commutative algebraist currently at the University of Toronto. For four years prior to joining the faculty at UofT, she was a professor at Quest University Canada, a small liberal arts college in Squamish BC focused on undergraduate education. Sarah completed her PhD at the University of Michigan.

Mathematics; History and biography; Mathematics education

video/mp4

Author affiliation: University of Toronto

2018-09-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67181

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/