Yann Benétreau-Dupin (San Francisco State University)
This poster presents the goals, method, and encouraging results of the first iteration of a course titled “The Art(s) of Quantitative reasoning”. It is a successful example of a STEAM (i.e., STEM+Arts) teaching experiment that relied on inquiry-based pedagogical methods that philosophers are well prepared for.
The course focused on a few issues in quantitative reasoning that have shaped the history of the arts, that is, to study a few cases in the history of the arts that posed a technical—mathematical—problem and different ways to overcome this problem. The main units were the problem of musical tuning and temperament, and perspective and projective geometry in visual arts.
The general pedagogical approach was to focus on problem solving, in small group class and at home, so as to foster conceptual understanding and critical thinking rather than learning rules. The small class size (enrollment capped at 30) made this manageable.
The mathematics level covered was not higher than high school level. Even though this was not, strictly speaking, a philosophy class, an argumentation-centered teaching method that is not constrained by disciplinary boundaries makes this a teaching experience in which many philosophers can partake.
To assess the ability of such a course to help students become “college ready” in math and meet their general education math requirement, a pre/post test was conducted on usual elementary notions, most of which weren’t explicitly covered during the semester. Overall students’ elementary knowledge improved, but this was much more true of those whose initial knowledge was lower, to the point where pre- and post-test results are not correlated. Assuming that any further analysis of the data is meaningful at all (given how small the sample size is), these results depend on gender (women’s scores improved more than men’s), but not on year (e.g., no significant difference between freshmen and seniors).
