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Assignment 1 - Reflection


While much of this class has been spent looking at very different ways of writing and solving math problems, researching and working through the problems related to the volume of a pyramid opened my eyes to some of the similarities between ancient and modern ways of conceptualizing mathematical problems. One similarity that fascinated me was the cross-cultural relevance of geometric reasoning. Though it was often difficult in past lessons to wrap my head around the Babylonian sexagesimal system, the geometric reasoning from Lui Hui (the mathematician from ancient China) was reasonably straight forward to understand. 

For me, this reinforces the importance of trying to find simple geometric ways to demonstrate solutions for future students instead of relying only on algebraic solutions. As math teachers we will be teaching students the 'language' of math, which certainly includes algebra, however understanding that many of our students not be 'fluent' yet, we need to look for ways to help them form understandings of crucial concepts without relying solely on algebra and other modern math notation. 

Something else that I continue to take away from this course and this assignment in particular is the importance of having a genuine problem to solve. The math that we are teach in secondary school is, in the grand scheme of things, fairly simple while the math used to solve modern problems is incredibly complicated; its far beyond my own scope of knowledge and certainly beyond the scope of a high school class. In this sense, looking back at historical problems is how we can introduce genuine problems that various ancient civilizations faced and that ancient mathematicians generated novel solutions to solve. 

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