Here’s my most recent project, for those interested in Mathematics, though it likely won’t be as popular as my Batman Equation. For my first assignment at Drexel, I created a Timeline of Mathematics in Higher Education. It ended up being 6 MB, and covered everything from the Ishango Bone to Modern Times.
http://imgur.com/PFkp9
Here’s a brief summary for those who don’t know the major events.
Ancient times led to the rise of Egyptian and Babylonian Math, while India and China did their own thing. This led to the Greeks and into the Dark Ages where the Trivium & Quadrivium ruled over all. The Dawn of the University in Bologna and Paris came in the 12th century and defined math education through the Renaissance (though certain Mathematicians made huge leaps during this time). Modern math came about in 18th and 19th century Europe, where we got the 5 major branches of math (Algebra, Analysis, Topology, Geometry, and Discrete Math).
During all of this, though, the United States didn’t really have much education (sure, we had some universities, but they were still developing, much like the rest of the country). Modern Mathematics in Higher Ed in the United States has two real goals. 1) To teach Basic Skills to those who need it and can use it. 2) To advance the higher math concepts from the European Industrial Revolution. These two goals are very different, though, which creates an enormous divide between lower division math (such as at the Community Colleges) and upper division or graduate level math. The last hundred years have also been plagued with so many changes in the way we handle math education that any progress made is inevitably canceled by new reform. Here’s a summary of the Main events from the last Hundred Years of American Math History:
Post WWI - The math educator Kilpatrick writes an article saying that we should only teach mathematics that has a practical application. Though the MAA disapproves and begins the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, an Open Curriculum is taught throughout the twenties.
Pre WWII - Throughout the thirties, mathematics and the liberal arts were downplayed, while citizenship was pushed. Some even believed that the Hitler Youth movement was the way we should take education. Between this, the Open Curriculum, and the Depression, when WWII started many recruits were unable to even count their munitions, which led to the army having to teach them basic skills math.
Post WWII - The National Science Foundation and GI Bill were created. An emphasis was again put on educating the populous, and we also wanted to create a peacetime research organization. Math was again embraced.
New Math - It started out great: Teachers and Mathematicians working together locally to improve the way students think about math concepts. It worked, on a small scale. When it went national, we had under prepared teachers, parents who didn’t understand what their children were thinking about, and little mathematician support (most were focused on their own research, and couldn’t be bothered to train a kindergarten teacher). It didn’t end well.
Sputnik & the Babyboomers - The end of the fifties saw the Sputnik Launch, and the babyboomers were preparing for college. This led to massive college expansions and a push for Math and the Sciences.
Back to Basics - New Math’s replacement. Instead of trying to learn the advanced subjects, why don’t we just make everyone memorize everything. Repetition, whether they need it or not.
Summerhill - A book written in the sixties about an open education movement in Scotland lead to an open education movement in the US in the seventies. It was similar to what was done in the twenties after Kilpatrick… how’d that end up, again? This movement was short lived.
The Reagan Years - The NCTM created a set of standards, and pushed for them to take hold. We also had representatives pushing for this, in particular with the “Our Nation at Risk” speech. Most of the 80s, though, involved a push for a problem solving approach; unfortunately this meant “make more word problems that make no sense” to textbook companies, and it burned another generation of math learners.
The Math Wars - The 90s saw all hell breaking loose. NSF, NCTM, Parents, Politicians, Teachers, Mathematicians, Federal Gov’t, State Gov’t, everyone had their own opinion, and everyone was fighting about what to do. In particular, California created it’s Framework for Math, which wasn’t aligned with NCTM and wasn’t meant to teach towards standardized tests. NSF and the others then claimed that low test scores proved that California was failing, despite what teachers thought. Eventually, the Framework would be realigned to be closer to the NCTM standards, and a High School Exit Exam was put in place.
No Child Left Behind - This changed the game. The Federal Gov’t decides the curriculum, and your funding is based on your schools test scores. As such, nearly every school in the country has changed their model of teaching so that the entire year is spent just teaching towards the test. If it isn’t on the test, it isn’t important, and it is skipped. This and all of the other changes to K12 education have a major effect on higher ed, as these uneducated, inexperienced students who graduate are our new students. How will our students attain the Mathematics Researcher level if they are unable to derive the quadratic equation on their own?
That pretty much sums up all of the major events in Mathematics in Higher Education over the last 50,000 years, though the focus is definitely on modern developments in the US and California. Check out the Timeline if you’ld like to see exactly how things line up, and let me know if you see any errors on it (it’s definitely a work in progress).
