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Classroom Resources Index – General Strategies, applicable to all courses

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Alien Encounters, by Gavin Hitchcock
An illustration of how historical dramatizations can be used in teaching, featuring a play in two acts about the struggles of European mathematicians of the 17th and 18th centuries to come to terms with the newly acknowledged negative numbers.

Correspondence from Mathematicians, by Jennifer Horn, Amy Zamierowski, and Rita Barger
A project that provides students with a research experience that allows them to discover the origins of familiar mathematical concepts.

Discovering the Beauty of Science, by Christine Latulippe and Joe Latulippe
The authors’ math history class visited the “Beautiful Science” exhibit at the Huntington Library in Southern California. Find physical math history texts and artifacts near you and virtual ones online to share with your students.

Euler and the Bernoullis: Learning by Teaching, by Paul Bedard
The author reflects on lessons he has learned about mathematics teaching and learning from these great mathematicians.

HoM Toolbox, or Historiography and Methodology for Mathematicians
A series that guides readers through the basic principles and theoretical approaches for researching and writing the history of mathematics.

Investigating Euler's Polyhedral Formula Using Original Sources, by Lee Stemkoski
The works of Leonhard Euler are particularly accessible to readers as his papers usually contain many examples as well as a gradual progression of ideas. The author shows how teachers can use Euler’s original works in the classroom to explore the polyhedral formula and related results.

Keys to Mathematical Treasure Chests
A series that offers examples of how online databases of mathematical objects can be mined to unlock the collections that they preserve for use in research and teaching.

Pantas’ Cabinet of Mathematical Wonders: Images and the History of Mathematics, by Frank J. Swetz
Engage your students by using images, especially those of historical objects, manuscripts, and texts, in teaching mathematics.

Pitfalls and Potential Solutions to Your Primary Source Problems, by Adam E. Parker
Suggestions for dealing with difficulties that can arise when an instructor brings primary sources into the mathematics classroom.

Primary Source Projects and Reading Apprenticeship in Mathematics History, by Jennifer Clinkenbeard
How teaching with primary source-based materials can be enhanced by using a framework designed to engage students as readers.

Quotations in Context, by Michael Molinsky
A series of columns that explores the origins and meanings of various quotations about mathematics and mathematicians.

Seeking Relevance? Try the History of Mathematics, by Frank Swetz
Reprint of a 1983 NCTM article which argued that a natural integration of historical content into mathematics courses offers multiple benefits to students, with an “epilogue" written by the author in 2023 in which he reflected on developments in the use of history to teach mathematics over the past four decades and assessed the field’s future prospects.

Teaching and Research with Original Sources from the Euler Archive, by Dominic Klyve, Lee Stemkoski, and Erik Tou
How faculty and students can use and contribute to the MAA Euler Archive!

Teaching Mathematics with Ephemera: John Playfair's Course Outline for Practical Mathematics, by Amy Ackerberg-Hastings
Ephemera are a category of primary source that may prove especially engaging for students. The article provides examples of ephemera, a sample analysis of one piece of ephemera, and suggestions for incorporating this form of primary source into mathematics classrooms.

The Educational Times Database: Building an Online Database of Mathematics Questions and Solutions Published in a 19th-Century Journal, by Robert M. Manzo
An introduction to a new tool and its potential uses for researchers and educators, with an overview of the significance of the ET and its contributors in the history of mathematics, as well as the history of efforts to index the run of mathematical problems and solutions in the Educational Times and its sister publication Mathematical Questions.

The Enigmatic Number e: A History in Verse and Its Uses in the Mathematics Classroom, by Sarah Glaz
The author uses her poem, “The Enigmatic Number e,” to show how poetry about the history of mathematics can be used to enrich and enliven mathematics instruction and provides suggestions and resources for the use of the poem as a pedagogical tool in a variety of mathematics courses.
The Evolutionary Character of Mathematics, by Richard M. Davitt
An adaptation of Judy Grabiner's “Use/discover/explore/develop-define” paradigm that can be applied to historical accounts by instructors and students alike.

The Ladies’ Diary: A True Mathematical Treasure, by Frank J. Swetz 
How an 18th-century almanac for “ladies” became a source for mathematical problems and solutions, with suggestions about how one might use mathematical treasures such as this in the classroom.

The Mathematics of Levi ben Gershon, by Shai Simonson
Discussion of a work that contains ample material for the classroom, authored by one of the great mathematicians of the period between the Greeks and the Renaissance, Rabbi Levi ben Gershon.

Using Problems from the History of Mathematics, by Frank J. Swetz
Offers reasons for using problems from the history of mathematics in the classroom, and strategies for doing so.

Using the Publimath Database to Bring History into our Teaching, by Hombeline Languereau and Anne Michel-Pajus
Description, with user instructions, of a French online resource that catalogues research articles and projects for using history to teach mathematics.

Websites to Visit: Plus Magazine and National Curve Bank, by Victor J. Katz and Frank J. Swetz
Describes two websites of interest to Convergence readers: Plus Magazine and the National Curve Bank.

Who? How? What? A Strategy for Using History to Teach Mathematics, by Patricia Wilson and Jennifer Chauvot
The authors review four benefits of using the history of mathematics in the classroom and suggest a strategy of asking who does mathematics, how mathematics is done, and what mathematics is in order to help students and instructors discover the human story of mathematics by beginning to explore its history.

Word Histories: Melding Mathematics and Meanings, by Rheta N. Rubenstein and Randy K. Schwartz
The etymology of some common mathematical words, with ideas for incorporating them into instruction.

Why History of Mathematics? by Glen Van Brummelen
Justifications for using history to teach mathematics that were prepared to help secondary teachers in British Columbia understand how to approach a new 11th-grade course but which are widely applicable.


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"Classroom Resources Index – General Strategies, applicable to all courses," Convergence (May 2022)