How Is Mathematics Humanistic, Culturally Rich, Relevant, and Interesting?: Seeking Answers Through the Redesign of an Undergraduate Mathematics Course

Introduction

In this chapter, the authors describe the redesign of a STEM course, namely the History of Mathematics course, as part of their institution’s internationalization initiative. They begin with a discussion of relevant literature related to internationalization of curriculum: the assessment of intercultural and global learning outcomes, the emerging paradigm of student-centered learning outcomes as a means to student engagement and achievement and the challenges in teaching and learning mathematics. They describe the theoretical framework used to redesign the course, namely, the Backwards Design model with a blend of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Fink’s model of creating significant learning experiences and elaborate on the various phases of the framework in the context of the History of Mathematics course. The authors further illustrate how the course goals and institutional learning outcomes were used to develop the learning activities for the internationalized course with the goal of making mathematics less static and more humanistic. The human element is emphasized by examining how the study of math was used to solve real world problems, exploring how scholars grappled with academic challenges that were demanding to solve, and finally by exploring the very human qualities of the lives that notable mathematicians lived. The chapter further summarizes the pilot implementation of the internationalized course for the first semester including synopses of student work. It concludes with a reflection upon how the course may evolve, including additional assessment strategies for future implementation.