Abstract
To explore the relationship, between a historical calculus course and students’ views on mathematics, the one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted in which an open-ended questionnaire, students’ mathematics biographies, a history oriented teaching material of calculus, students’ self-reports, and the follow-up semi-structured interviews were served as the tools. The results indicated that most of the students considered mathematics thinking as the processes involved calculation and formula at the very beginning, nonetheless expressing different viewpoints after finishing the course. They attempted to connect the context of mathematicians’ problem solving with the characteristics of mathematics thinking. On mathematics knowledge, students strongly held a consistent instrumentalist view on mathematics, before and after the course. However, at the end of the course, they were more likely to recognize mathematics as the continuity and in-heritance knowledge and the role of mathematicians on its development. Furthermore, this study also emphasizes the importance of students’ understanding of the nature of mathematics.
| Keywords: | calculus; history of mathematics; view on mathematics; nature of mathematics |
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