Perspectives on Mathematics

Catalog description

This is an Institutional Priority course that develops key competencies in critical thinking and oral communication through an introduction to mathematics. This course includes additional online modules to support Institutional Priority Learning Outcomes and Career Competencies. The course offers an opportunity for students to apply critical thinking skills to various aspects of mathematics and to gain experience in developing and presenting original arguments in oral forms. The course explores ideas, history, and problems in mathematics that reveal the influence and nature of math. Students will realize mathematics is not an isolated subject of mere manipulations, theorems, and irrelevant topics. The course seeks to bring awareness of the inseparable relationship of math and the world around us and to give insight as to what math is, what it attempts to accomplish, and how to think mathematically. Though students have heterogeneous backgrounds, a careful selection of topics and chapters allows all levels of students to effectively study the material.