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This arsenal of tips and techniques eases new students into undergraduate mathematics, unlocking the world of definitions, theorems, and proofs.
Thinking Like a Mathematician focuses on high-interest, career-related topics in the elementary curriculum related to mathematics. Students will explore interdisciplinary content, foster creativity, and develop higher order thinking skills with activities aligned to relevant content area standards. Students will engage in exploration activities, complete mathematical challenges, and then apply what they have learned by making real-world connections. Thinking Like a Mathematician reflects key emphases of curricula from the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary, including the development of process skills in various content areas and the enhancement of discipline-specific thinking and habits of mind through hands-on activities. Grade 3
Was mathematics invented or discovered? Why do we have negative numbers? How much math does a pineapple know? Think Like a Mathematician will answer all your burning questions about mathematics, as well as some ones you never thought of asking! Whether you want to know about probability, infinity, or even the possibility of alien life, this book provides a fun and accessible approach to understanding all things mathematics - and more - in the context of everyday life.
How to Think Like a Mathematician (Set of 3 Books) by Rajesh Kumar Thakur: How to be Genius in Mathematics: In this book, Rajesh Kumar Thakur offers valuable insights and strategies on how to develop a mathematical mindset and think like a mathematician. Through practical tips, problem-solving techniques, and engaging examples, the book aims to help readers enhance their mathematical abilities and become more confident in approaching mathematical problems. Mathematics Quiz Book: This quiz book provides an interactive and enjoyable way to test and expand one's mathematical knowledge. Filled with thought-provoking questions, puzzles, and quizzes, readers can challenge themselves and deepen their understanding of various mathematical concepts. The book covers a wide range of topics, making it an ideal resource for both students and enthusiasts. Enrich Your Maths Skill: This book focuses on enriching one's mathematics skills through a diverse set of exercises and problems. Rajesh Kumar Thakur presents a carefully curated collection of problems designed to sharpen mathematical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and logical reasoning. By working through these exercises, readers can strengthen their mathematical foundations and gain confidence in tackling complex mathematical concepts. Key Aspects of the Collection "How to Think Like a Mathematician": Developing Mathematical Mindset: "How to be Genius in Mathematics" provides guidance on fostering a mathematical mindset and thinking like a mathematician. Interactive Learning: "Mathematics Quiz Book" offers a fun and interactive way to test and expand mathematical knowledge through quizzes and puzzles. Strengthening Mathematical Skills: "Enrich Your Maths Skill" provides a diverse set of exercises to enhance mathematical skills and problem-solving abilities. Rajesh Kumar Thakur is an author and educator known for his contributions to mathematics education. Through these books, he shares his expertise and passion for mathematics, helping readers develop their mathematical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
Why do some children seem to learn mathematics easily and others slave away at it, learning it only with great effort and apparent pain? Why are some people good at algebra but terrible at geometry? How can people who successfully run a business as adults have been failures at math in school? How come some professional mathematicians suffer terribly when trying to balance a checkbook? And why do school children in the United States perform so dismally in international comparisons? These are the kinds of real questions the editors set out to answer, or at least address, in editing this book on mathematical thinking. Their goal was to seek a diversity of contributors representing multiple viewpoints whose expertise might converge on the answers to these and other pressing and interesting questions regarding this subject. The chapter authors were asked to focus on their own approach to mathematical thinking, but also to address a common core of issues such as the nature of mathematical thinking, how it is similar to and different from other kinds of thinking, what makes some people or some groups better than others in this subject area, and how mathematical thinking can be assessed and taught. Their work is directed to a diverse audience -- psychologists interested in the nature of mathematical thinking and abilities, computer scientists who want to simulate mathematical thinking, educators involved in teaching and testing mathematical thinking, philosophers who need to understand the qualitative aspects of logical thinking, anthropologists and others interested in how and why mathematical thinking seems to differ in quality across cultures, and laypeople and others who have to think mathematically and want to understand how they are going to accomplish that feat.
There is more than one way to think. Most people are familiar with the systematic, rule-based thinking that one finds in a mathematical proof or a computer program. But such thinking does not produce breakthroughs in mathematics and science nor is it the kind of thinking that results in significant learning. Deep thinking is a different and more basic way of using the mind. It results in the discontinuous “aha!” experience, which is the essence of creativity. It is at the heart of every paradigm shift or reframing of a problematic situation. The identification of deep thinking as the default state of the mind has the potential to reframe our current approach to technological change, education, and the nature of mathematics and science. For example, there is an unbridgeable gap between deep thinking and computer simulations of thinking. Many people suspect that such a gap exists, but find it difficult to make this intuition precise. This book identifies the way in which the authentic intelligence of deep thinking differs from the artificial intelligence of “big data” and “analytics”. Deep thinking is the essential ingredient in every significant learning experience, which leads to a new way to think about education. It is also essential to the construction of conceptual systems that are at the heart of mathematics and science, and of the technologies that shape the modern world. Deep thinking can be found whenever one conceptual system morphs into another. The sources of this study include the cognitive development of numbers in children, neuropsychology, the study of creativity, and the historical development of mathematics and science. The approach is unusual and original. It comes out of the author's lengthy experience as a mathematician, teacher, and writer of books about mathematics and science, such as How Mathematicians Think: Using Ambiguity, Contradiction, and Paradox to Create Mathematics and The Blind Spot: Science and the Crisis of Uncertainty. Contents:What is Deep Thinking?Conceptual SystemsDeep Thinking in Mathematics and ScienceDeep Thinking in the Mind and the BrainDeep Thinking and CreativityDeep LearningGood TeachingUndergraduate MathematicsWhat the Mind Can Teach Us About MathematicsWhat Mathematics Can Teach Us About the MindReferences Readership: Students, graduate students and researchers with an interest in mathematics, mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, psychologists, and readers who use mathematics in their work. Key Features:In this book, the author, a mathematician, demonstrates the specific difference between creative mathematical thought and the analytic thought of logic and the artificial intelligence of computersThis book shows why learning is a creative activity and demonstrates how teaching and learning must undergo radical changes in this age of rapid technological changeMathematics is a model for how people think and it reveals the essence of intelligenceThe author, a mathematician, demonstrates that creativity is a basic feature of the world. The same phenomenon of creative intelligence underlies the theory of evolution, child development, learning, and scientific and mathematical research. Creativity is so natural that even babies are capable of it but so difficult that adults have great trouble with it. This book explains the reasons behind this apparent paradoxKeywords:Mathematics;Cognitive Development;Thinking;Education;Mathematics Education;Conceptual Systems
Most students in abstract algebra classes have great difficulty making sense of what the instructor is saying. Moreover, this seems to remain true almost independently of the quality of the lecture. This book is based on the constructivist belief that, before students can make sense of any presentation of abstract mathematics, they need to be engaged in mental activities which will establish an experiential base for any future verbal explanation. No less, they need to have the opportunity to reflect on their activities. This approach is based on extensive theoretical and empirical studies as well as on the substantial experience of the authors in teaching astract algebra. The main source of activities in this course is computer constructions, specifically, small programs written in the mathlike programming language ISETL; the main tool for reflections is work in teams of 2-4 students, where the activities are discussed and debated. Because of the similarity of ISETL expressions to standard written mathematics, there is very little programming overhead: learning to program is inseparable from learning the mathematics. Each topic is first introduced through computer activities, which are then followed by a text section and exercises. This text section is written in an informed, discusive style, closely relating definitions and proofs to the constructions in the activities. Notions such as cosets and quotient groups become much more meaningful to the students than when they are preseted in a lecture.
“Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read . . ." —Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.
"Mathematical thinking is not the same as 'doing math'--unless you are a professional mathematician. For most people, 'doing math' means the application of procedures and symbolic manipulations. Mathematical thinking, in contrast, is what the name reflects, a way of thinking about things in the world that humans have developed over three thousand years. It does not have to be about mathematics at all, which means that many people can benefit from learning this powerful way of thinking, not just mathematicians and scientists."--Back cover.
