2019 Bridges Conference Short Film Festival

Susan Gerofsky

Filmmakers

Susan Gerofsky

Associate Professor of Mathematics Education

University of British Columbia

Vancouver, BC, Canada

susan.gerofsky@ubc.ca

https://edcp.educ.ubc.ca/susan-gerofsky/

Statement

As a mathematics educator, I’m interested in helping students learn about mathematical patterning and structuring through hands-on, whole body activities and arts-based approaches. Multisensory, aesthetically-pleasing realizations of mathematical patterns have been shown to help learners at all levels build more meaningful understandings of abstract mathematical concepts and notations.

Films

Image for entry 'Dancing Euclidean Proofs'

Dancing Euclidean Proofs

00:04:20

Producer/Director: Susan Gerofsky; Dancer/Choreographers: Samuel J. Milner, Carolina Azul Duque; Cinematographer & Drone: Liam Meredith; Sound Recordist: Phil Byrne; Music Recordist: Daniel Imola; Editor: Roanna de Guzman; Score: Sam Milner

2019

Watch

Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 BCE) has long been held to be an example of minimalist mathematical beauty. As mathematics educators interested in embodied learning, we want to share that beauty with our students (and perhaps mainstream dance audiences), to promote understanding and appreciation of Euclidean proofs in visceral, movement-oriented ways. The three protagonists for this film (Sam Milner, Carolina Azul Duque and their professor, Susan Gerofsky) met in a Math History for Teachers class at the University of British Columbia in 2018, and took up the challenge of choreographing and dancing the first three propositions in Book 1 of Euclid's Elements. This short film documents our experiment in dancing Euclidean proofs in the context of a university mathematics education class, and explores philosophical, mathematical, and pedagogical dimensions of the process of dancing geometric proofs on the beach.