Investigations on a Pedagogical Calculus of Constructions

In the last few years appeared pedagogical propositional natural deduction systems. In these systems, one must satisfy the pedagogical constraint: the user must give an example of any introduced notion. First we expose the reasons of such a constraint and properties of these "pedagogical" calculi: the absence of negation at logical side, and the "usefulness" feature of terms at computational side (through the Curry-Howard correspondence). Then we construct a simple pedagogical restriction of the calculus of constructions (CC) called CCr. We establish logical limitations of this system, and compare its computational expressiveness to Godel system T. Finally, guided by the logical limitations of CCr, we propose a formal and general definition of what a pedagogical calculus of constructions should be.Comment: 18 page

Supporting Our Struggling Students: Details of a Hybrid Mathematics Summer Bridge Program

It goes without saying that the schools in the consortium are used to dealing with gifted and talented students. However with such high-caliber students, we also have high expectations. What resources do we offer to the students who struggle at our institutions? This presentation will detail the setup and results of EXCEL2 - a summer bridge program offered at the Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy to help students who were unable to meet course expectations. The program operated through a hybrid online/in-person model - with instruction primarily given through video conferencing but coupled with an on-campus experience

The reals as rational Cauchy filters

We present a detailed and elementary construction of the real numbers from the rational numbers a la Bourbaki. The real numbers are defined to be the set of all minimal Cauchy filters in $\mathbb{Q}$ (where the Cauchy condition is defined in terms of the absolute value function on $\mathbb{Q}$) and are proven directly, without employing any of the techniques of uniform spaces, to form a complete ordered field. The construction can be seen as a variant of Bachmann's construction by means of nested rational intervals, allowing for a canonical choice of representatives

Gentzen-Prawitz Natural Deduction as a Teaching Tool

We report a four-years experiment in teaching reasoning to undergraduate students, ranging from weak to gifted, using Gentzen-Prawitz's style natural deduction. We argue that this pedagogical approach is a good alternative to the use of Boolean algebra for teaching reasoning, especially for computer scientists and formal methods practionners

Trends in learning and teaching of geometry: The case of the Geometry and its Applications Meeting

We characterize the thematic trends of the Geometry and its Applications Meeting. This meeting is held periodically in Colombia, country in which our study was carried out. We used a taxonomy of key terms specific to mathematics education to code the proceedings of this meeting. The study variables are purpose, educational level, pedagogical notions, and topics. We establish the thematic trends in terms of the values of the variables. We describe their evolution over time and, using a normalization process, we compare the extent to which geometry topics are treated with respect to the other variables. The meeting has disseminated activities and curricular innovations to a lesser extent. The community that attends the meeting is focused on the theoretical development associated with geometry and on higher educational levels. The papers that address pedagogical notions focus on learning and the classroom. The topics with the highest percentage of research are geometry in three dimensions and Euclidean geometry. We suggest that the meeting should promote the dissemination of curricular innovations and give more attention to the notions of teaching, curriculum and assessment in both research and innovations. We perceive the need to address learning and teaching in preschool and primary education

Symplectic geometries on supermanifolds

Extension of symplectic geometry on manifolds to the supersymmetric case is considered. In the even case it leads to the even symplectic geometry (or, equivalently, to the geometry on supermanifolds endowed with a non-degenerate Poisson bracket) or to the geometry on an even Fedosov supermanifolds. It is proven that in the odd case there are two different scalar symplectic structures (namely, an odd closed differential 2-form and the antibracket) which can be used for construction of symplectic geometries on supermanifolds.Comment: LaTex, 1o pages, LaTex, changed conten

Innovative approaches to teaching mathematics in higher education: a review and critique

This paper provides a snapshot of emerging trends in mathematics teaching in higher education for STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Overwhelmingly, papers identify a focus on conceptual understandings of mathematics in comparison to understanding that is instrumental or procedural. Calls for reform of mathematics teaching have been the basis for a range of studies; responses to these calls have embraced innovative methods for implementing changes in learning and teaching of mathematics, sometimes rooted in constructivist ideology. Observed trends have been categorised in six groups. In many studies, technology is being used as an enabler of reforms. Constraints to implementing new approaches in mathematics teaching are indicated. Discussion of contemporary research questions that could be asked as a result of the shift towards teaching mathematics in innovative ways is provided and is followed by a critique of the underlying theoretical positions, essentially that of constructivism

A case study investigation of how assessment practices construct teachers' and pupils' views of mathematics

Bibliography: leaves 78-82.Assessment practices are an integral part of schooling. The prominence of assessment within schooling in providing information to students and teachers about students' "ability" in learning school subjects, raises an important question: what sort of influence do assessment practices have on how school subjects are perceived by students and teachers? This dissertation focuses on two themes - the way in which assessment practices construct school mathematics, and the way in which these constructions of school mathematics work dynamically with assessment practices to produce descriptions of students