Liberal Arts Inspired Mathematics: A Report OR How to bring cultural and humanistic aspects of mathematics to the classroom as effective teaching and learning tools

摘要

This is the report of a project on ways of teaching university-level mathematics in a humanistic way. The main part of the project recounted here involved a journey to the United States during the fall term of 2012 to visit several liberal arts colleges in order to study and discuss mathematics teaching. Several themes that came up during my conversations at these colleges are discussed in the text: the invisibility of mathematics in everyday life, the role of calculus in American mathematics curricula, the u22is algebra necessary?u27u27 discussion, teaching mathematics as a language, the transfer problem in learning, and the relationship between humanistic mathematics and mathematics as taught in liberal arts contexts.