Course Materials

There is no textbook for this course. All course content will be covered via lectures and homework.

Exams

Below are links to the take-home portions of each exam. If you are interested in using LaTeX to type up your solutions, contact me and I will send you a link to the source file of the exam.

Exam 1 (Part 2) (PDF) (Due Friday, March 8)
Final Exam (PDF) (Due by 9am on Friday, May 10)

Miscellaneous Materials

Setting the Stage (PDF)
Living Proof
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)
- Productive Failure | Manu Kapur | TEDxLugano (17:28 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)
What is Mathematics? The Most Misunderstood Subject (short article by Dr. Robert H. Lewis, Professor of Mathematics, Fordham University)

Dana C. Ernst

Mathematics & Teaching

Current Courses

MAT 526: Combinatorics

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Land Acknowledgement

Flagstaff and NAU sit at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, on homelands sacred to Native Americans throughout the region. The Peaks, which includes Humphreys Peak (12,633 feet), the highest point in Arizona, have religious significance to several Native American tribes. In particular, the Peaks form the Diné (Navajo) sacred mountain of the west, called Dook'o'oosłííd, which means "the summit that never melts". The Hopi name for the Peaks is Nuva'tukya'ovi, which translates to "place-of-snow-on-the-very-top". The land in the area surrounding Flagstaff is the ancestral homeland of the Hopi, Ndee/Nnēē (Western Apache), Yavapai, A:shiwi (Zuni Pueblo), and Diné (Navajo). We honor their past, present, and future generations, who have lived here for millennia and will forever call this place home.