Final 442 Course Reflection

(This one is intended to be the second final course reflection, with the 342 one first and 450 last.)

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• Looking through the blog posts I did for this course, it feels like we covered so much but also so little. On one hand, we covered the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, some Chinese here and there as well. On the other hand, while we did dedicate a few classes at the end of the term to Islamic, Inca, Mayan and Indian mathematics, it was more of a breadth coverage that had to be condensed due to the short amount of time remaining in the term. In short, there was depth in a few segments of mathematical history, but not as much breadth of coverage. In my opinion, it still felt like a rich experience that served its purpose; how I see the purpose of this course is to not only elaborate on the history of mathematics across time and space, but also to enlighten us and flare up our intrinsic appeal towards this facet of mathematics. The humanizing aspect, if you will. 
  
  
• Before this program, I did have a mild degree of appreciation and acknowledgement of mathematics throughout time and space. I also want to note that time and space is a central theme that I learned and interpreted from this experience, which is funny to say considering that these are very dimensional terms and that mathematics deals in dimensions a lot of the time... but I digress. In any case, time and space play such an integral (HA!) part in the wider context behind mathematics; whether it's the long timeline of figures dotted throughout the millennia or the parts of the world doing surprisingly similar yet distinct mathematics, being not just made aware of, but also getting a deep dive into the past gave me a greater sensibility towards something I did not feel much towards previously. To that, I think this course did a great job and certainly has its place... and honestly, all the (perceived to be) cold, rational and objective teachables could use a history class as part of their curriculum.
  
  
• Although my first point gives off a lamenting feeling, I do have to note that the inquiry-style assignments were a great way to address the missing breadth situation I brought up. The first assignment was a good assignment to ease into the course with as it had us almost role-playing the people who used to solve these exact word problems (though not in English). As for the second assignment, partly due to my cohortmates being so thoughtful, I learned a great deal about things that weren't covered in the course. That "please do not cover something that was covered in this course" requirement should stay for the second and third assignments for the sake of breadth, but also originality. I don't think I'd normally go out of my way to not just learn about pi, but also learn how to teach pi to a group of people. Now that that assignment is done, I can not only say that I have done that, but now I have something I can present to students learning about pi in my classes! (I am very proud of my slide deck game. After this program, I think I might be a master at Google Slides, haha.)
  
  
• Honestly, Assignment 3 deserves its own bullet point. I highly recommend reading my reflection for that assignment as it goes into a lot more depth about my thoughts, but now that a week has passed since I presented with JJ... I still keep thinking about cellular automata and the crazy implications behind them. Not only did I not come up with that topic, but I never even heard of the word cellular automata before JJ shared the idea with me. So in addition to learning from my professor and the course materials, my classmates were a valuable part of the experience! This is something I've also stated with my 342 final reflection, but it cannot be overstated how important it is to have a cohort where anyone can feel comfortable working with anyone. There was also an implicit curriculum at play here; I further refined my research, inquiry, slide-making, and even artistic skills through all these presentations. It was a wonderful topic that tied into my long-running, back-of-the-mind philosophies of the universe, and now I have a mathematical construct to use as a vehicle if I ever decide to share these profound, otherworldly ideas.
  
  
• Smaller bullet point, but it was nice to have the Chinese highlight. Erica in particular was a fun guest speaker (actually, I found the guest speakers to be valuable experiences in all 3 classes), and learning about my own culture's achievements in one of my favourite school subjects was a welcome experience. In my practicum school, there is a large ethnic diversity -- knowing how it made me feel to see my intersectionality represented, I think it would go a long way in piquing intrinsic interest among my students by highlighting some relatable achievements in mathematics.
  

Mathematics history was a fun course that I never knew I felt was important until I went through it. Although my stance still remains mostly the same on requiring an understanding of mathematics history (high school students should not be forcibly assessed based on it), I feel that what I've learned from this course should be primarily a boost in intrinsic interest in mathematics. History is inherently a humanity, and by tying it to mathematics, we humanize it. We can make it just a little less cold and more approachable, and because of this mission I've assigned to mathematical history, I don't think it should be forced (otherwise that's just relying on extrinsic motivation, which I feel defeats the purpose of this). Let's look forward to making more math history, and maybe in the future our students' work will be taught in classes such as these :)