for cm_bing

paper

1. Choose one mathematical topic.  This should be an event or person mentioned in the readings.

2. Find out what was going on in the world at the same time (world context).

3. Take a position on how your chosen mathematical topic and your chosen world context did or did not influence each other.  If they influenced each other, then explain why and how they did so. If they did not influence each other, why not? You may choose people, ideas or events from any region of the world and should comment on cultural influences. The more specific you can be, the better. You must support your opinions with evidence and sources, correctly cited, of course (based on Berlinghoff and Gouvea, Exercise 2, p 61).

Note: Please choose ONE specific mathematical topic and ONE specific element of the world's context. The narrower your focus, the better.

Remember that your mathematical topic is the topic that you are investigating; you need a thesis around which to build your paper. The above suggestions are general topics, not thesis statements. You would need to do a little preliminary research on each piece. Formulate some questions based on your initial research and then create a thesis statement to define exactly what you will address in the paper. A thesis statement is a claim or opinion that can be supported by an argument. The body of the paper should support the thesis statement. The following link may help you learn how to formulate a strong thesis statement http://web.archive.org/web/20100323123102/http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/thesis.html

Of course, the thesis statement may need to be revised as you do more focused research depending on the information that you find. The thesis can be expanded or narrowed to make use of your best information. It is unlikely that you will use all of the information that you gather.

1) In standard essay format and in three-five pages of writing, contrast and compare two classical theories of development (psychoanalytic, psychosocial, traditional learning, social learning, cognitive-developmental) or either Bronfenbrenner's ecological model OR the evolutionary perspective. For example, you could compare Vygotsky's social learning model with Piaget's cognitive-developmental model or compare Brofenbrenner's ecological model to the evolutionary perspective.

2) Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream