Steven Camacho

History of Math

MAT332

Ms. Curry

I went into this course being very unexcited about it in general. The teacher who was

supposed to teach this class taught one of my other math classes and it was insanely difficult for

being an 100 level college class. It was more difficult than my Calculus and my Calculus 2

classes. The teacher who taught the class was very responsive and did an amazing job with

teaching this class for the first time. Her feedback was great and helped me a lot. Every week I

would go into the week actually excited about what we were learning about next in class and

what that weeks “Math Problems of History” was going to be. The assignments became a giant

talking point at my work where other teachers wanted to try the worksheets out and we would all

compare how we got the answers after we finished. I think that’s what really made this class so

enjoyable, I got to share ideas and thoughts with other people who love math and we all got to

connect and talk about something that, for them, was just a fun little ungraded worksheet. I

learned about so many mathematicians in this class and I think it gave me more of an appreciate

when my Calculus and Finite teacher would talk about random mathematicians I never heard of.

The class really helped make all of my math classes I have taken connect in one way or another,

whether due to the history of the math, or the mathematicians who created those mathematics.

Learning about the ancient number systems was really fun to learn and brought me back to my

Math for Teachers class where we did something similar, but this time I got to learn about the

history and why they used the symbols they did in some cases. Engaging with my peers in the
discussion board was actually fun for the first time in an online environment. You could tell that

a lot of us really put in the effort and we references a lot of each others previous posts or

information about the person while responding to their posts. Overall I am very happy with my

effort in the class and am exciting that I am one step closer to my degree where I can continue to

teach math for the rest of my life.