Course Materials
Below you will find notes and handouts that we have used in class, as well as some other useful stuff. We will add to the problem collection as the semester progresses.
- Problem Collection for Mathematical Reasoning (PDF)
- Student Contract (PDF)
- Setting the Stage (PDF)
- The Secret to Raising Smart Kids | Carol Dweck (article on Scientific American)
- 7 Things Growth Mindset is Not (article on Turn Around for Children)
- Videos on Growth Mindset and Productive Failure
- Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth (6:12 min)
- How to Become a Better Learner | Learner Lab (13:30 min)
- Learning Like a Jungle Tiger | Trevor Ragan (5:23 min, similar to previous video)
- Productive Failure/Struggle Skateboard Video 1 (1:25min)
- Productive Failure/Struggle Skateboard Video 2 (0:40 min)
- Productive Failure/Struggle BMX Video (1:39 min)
- Michael Jordan Failure Commercial (0:32 min)
- Mindsets: Fixed Versus Growth (2:19 min)
- Growth Mindset Animation (3:50 min)
- KhanAcademy interview with Carol Dweck about growth mindset (3:06 min)
- Make Mistakes | Michael Starbird (2:11 min)
- Ira Glass on the Creative Process (1:54 min)
- The State of Being Stuck | Ben Orlin (blog post on Math with Bad Drawings)
- The Chinese Farmer | Alan Watts (2:26 min)
- Do Schools Kill Creativity? | Ken Robinson (19:22 min)
- The Learner Lab Podcast
- Do Hard Things | The Learner Lab (2:41 min)
- The Subtle Art of the Mathematical Conjecture (article on Quanta Magazine)
- Lessons from My Math Degree That Have Nothing to Do with Math (6 min read on Medium)
- Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? | Roger Penrose (4:14 min)
- Quizzes:
- Pictures of board work that we ran out of time to discuss. Note: You should not assume that the solutions/proofs posted below are valid or sufficient.
Don’t just read it; fight it! Ask your own question, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?