Math Autobiography Pre-prompt:
We all bring various identities (e.g., gender, race, language, culture, religion, sexuality etc and their intersectionalities) into learning environments as we interact with each other. There are also unspoken rules and values in learning environments that have shaped your perspectives on learning mathematics, which may have impacted your mathematical identity. These unspoken rules and values may have impacted the power dynamics in your classrooms.
The purpose of this assignment is to have you reflect on how your experiences with mathematics have shaped your various identities. This will set the stage for all the (possibly different) ways you will experience mathematics in this class. The autobiography will also help me know how you feel about mathematics, understand where you’re coming from when you come to a math class, and create a course that will be useful for you.
Describe your history as a learner of mathematics. Please specifically include:
The purpose of this assignment is to have you reflect on how your experiences with mathematics have shaped your various identities. This will set the stage for all the (possibly different) ways you will experience mathematics in this class. The autobiography will also help me know how you feel about mathematics, understand where you’re coming from when you come to a math class, and create a course that will be useful for you.
Describe your history as a learner of mathematics. Please specifically include:
- the roles that identities (e.g., race, class, gender, culture, language, sexuality, etc. and their intersections) play(ed) in your math learning story.
- examples from various settings (e.g., mathematics classrooms, study sessions, and other social settings) where you felt or witnessed yourself or someone else being excluded or included as a result of unspoken rules and values.
- how your attitude toward mathematics has changed over the years, why you like it or don’t like it.
Math Autobiography Post-prompt:
Reread your mathematical autobiography from the beginning of the semester. Consider a new chapter in your mathematical autobiography. What would be in this chapter? Include at least two different situations from this Calculus course on how your experiences with mathematics have shaped your various identities. Identify some of the spoken or unspoken rules and values that are now part of your mathematical autobiography.
