Overview
The Department is saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague, David W. Henderson. Read more here.
Research Focus
Educational mathematics
I am currently involved in extensive mathematics curriculum innovation projects. My first book, Experiencing Geometry on Plane and Sphere (1996), has appeared in an expanded and revised third edition: Experiencing Geometry: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean With History (with Daina Taimina; Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2005). My second book, Differential Geometry: A Geometric Introduction (1998) has appeared in a Revised Second Edition (2005), and a new e-book Self Study Edition is due in 2012. In 2005, I accepted an invitation to join the high school curriculum development team for Robert Moses’ Algebra Project and am the lead writer for the geometry portions of the Algebra Project high school curriculum. In 2011, I accepted an invitation to join Richard Lehrer (Developmental Psychology, Vanderbilt University) in an NSF-supported project to develop and test the potential of experiencing, describing, and visualizing space as the core of an integrated STEM education that spans the K–5 grades. I am providing overall mathematical guidance to the project and designing instructional materials to support student investigations.
Publications
- Experiencing Geometry: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean With History (with Daina Taimina), 3rd Edition, Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2005. (pp: xxx + 402).
- How to use history to clarify common confusions in geometry (with Daina Taimina); Chapter 6 in From Calculus to Computers: Using Recent History in the Teaching of Mathematics (A. Shell and D. Jardine, eds.), MAA Notes 68, 2005, pp. 57–73.
- Experiencing Meanings in Geometry (with Daina Taimina); Chapter 3 in Aesthetics and Mathematics(David Pimm and N. Sinclair, eds.), Springer-Verlag, 2006, pp. 58–83.
- Alive mathematical reasoning; a chapter in Educational Transformations: Changing our lives through mathematics; A tribute to Stephen Ira Brown (L. Copes and F. Rosamond, eds.), Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006, pp. 247–270.
- Is all course-based mathematics special?, A response to Ann Watson’s “School mathematics as a special kind of mathematics”, For the Learning of Mathematics 28 no. 3 (2009), 9–10.
- Algebra Project Geometry Curricular Units, Public Curriculum Portal www.algebra.org/curriculum, 2011-2012.
