Speaker
- Susan Ruff (MIT)
Details
In this seminar, we’ll discuss concepts that can guide the teaching of mathematical communication: writing to learn vs. learning to write; Anne Beaufort’s model of the prerequisites to effective disciplinary communication; the view of genres and genre systems as rhetorical actions; and Lave and Wenger’s observation that limited peripheral participation can be an effective means for entering a community of practice. Periodic questions will guide participants to consider how these concepts could be applied in their contexts, and examples of their application to curriculum design, instruction, assignment design, feedback, and assessment will be given from communication-intensive mathematics subjects offered by the MIT Department of Mathematics.
Bio
For more than a decade, Susan Ruff of MIT’s Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication has been collaborating closely with mathematicians at MIT to teach mathematical communication in their communication-intensive mathematics subjects. Susan researches the reasoning of mathematics, mathematicians’ experiences writing and learning to write mathematics, and mathematical communication pedagogy. She is founding co-editor (with Haynes Miller and others) of MAA Mathematical Communication (mathcomm.org http://mathcomm.org), a resource for teachers who engage students in writing about mathematics. When she isn’t at MIT, she’s often rock climbing someplace remote.
