In the mathematics reform effort of the past decade, there has been growing recognition that the history of mathematics should be an integral part of the teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels. National standards for the preparation of teachers of mathematics in K-12 call for inclusion of history of mathematics in pre-service programs. Mathematicians who teach the history of mathematics and who use this history to improve their teaching are in need of more knowledge and resources to prepare to teach their students. The Mathematical Association of America (MAA), in cooperation with The American University (TAU), is creating an Institute in the History of Mathematics and its Use in Teaching (IHMT). The goal is to increase the presence of history in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum and teacher preparation in mathematics curriculum. Through intensive three-week programs in two successive summers, 80 mathematics faculty members are being prepared to teach courses in the history of mathematics and to use history to improve their teaching of standard undergraduate mathematics courses. Thirteen historians of mathematics, all of whom are known to be excellent teachers, lead explorations of the history of mathematics from antiquity through the twentieth-century, stressing applications and links between different areas of mathematics. Specific techniques for incorporating history into undergraduate mathematics courses are a central theme. Through presentations at national and regional mathematics meetings, publications, and electronic communications, the information and techniques of IHMT are being disseminated nationally. The home institutions, the students at those institutions for generations and the collegiate mathematics community will benefit from this broader understanding of mathematics and its teaching. Through the inclusion of history in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum, a new generation of teachers, as a resulty of their undergr aduate experience, will be able to enrich the courses they teach and benefit all students, at all grade levels, with interesting and relevant courses in mathematics.
