%0 Conference Paper %B Proceedings of the International Conference on 21st Century Information Technology in Mathematics Education %D 2006 %T The Methodological Relevance of the History of Mathematics for Mathematics Education %A Heeffer, Albrecht %E Dhompongsa, G %E Bhatti , F %E Kitson , Q %X

Mathematics education benefits from an integration of the history of mathematics within the mathematics curriculum. We provide three basic arguments for such integration. The first is epistemological and addresses a contextual view on mathematical knowledge. The second concerns the phylogenic aspects of the development of mathematics. Conceptual difficulties with teaching children mathematics often correspond with historical periods of conceptual crisis in mathematics. A third, historical argument, draws on the vast repository of experience in mathematics education. We provide examples for each of these arguments from the history of algebra.

%B Proceedings of the International Conference on 21st Century Information Technology in Mathematics Education %G eng