M326K Foundations of Number Systems

Prerequisite and degree relevance:

M408D or equivalent, with grade of C or better. Registration is restricted to students in a

teaching preparation program or to those with consent of the instructor.

Course description:

This course is intended to develop future teachers’ depth of understanding of certain

concepts in school mathematics. Topics for emphasis include: place value and arithmetic

operations (including hisßtorical perspectives and analysis of both standard and

nonstandard algorithms); prime factorization and other properties of integers; irrational

and transcendental numbers; complex numbers; properties of polynomials; and

connections of these topics with other areas of mathematics. There will be an emphasis

on conceptual understanding, on students’ developing both formal proofs and informal

explanation, on looking at concepts from multiple perspectives, and on problem solving

involving these topics.