Primary Source Projects and Reading Apprenticeship in Mathematics History: Course Context

We implemented PSPs alongside RA routines during three Fall semesters (2021, 2022, 2023) in a junior-level college history of mathematics course at California State University, Monterey Bay, which is a public undergraduate institution with about 7,000 undergraduate students. The demographics of the university are such that 50% of the students are first-generation college students, 50% belong to an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, and 30% are considered low-income [Enrollment Fast Facts n.d.].

History of Mathematics is a required course for mathematics majors who plan to earn a single-subject teaching credential to teach mathematics at the high school level, and it is an elective course for mathematics and statistics majors in other concentrations. There are usually between 20 and 30 students in the course each semester. The course utilizes William Dunham’s text Journey Through Genius [1991] and surveys the development of mathematical topics throughout history. PSPs are used alongside Dunham’s text to include contributions from non-Western mathematicians and to explore additional ideas outside of the scope of the main text.

The next three sections of this paper present sample RA routines and the ways that they facilitated student reading of the PSP materials, as well as sample student work and survey responses from the Fall 2022 offering of the course.