Sian Zelbo, J.D., Ph.D.

Lecturer, Program in Mathematics Education

Teachers College, Columbia University

Research on the Historical Relationship Between Mathematics and Society


sez2105@tc.columbia.edu

My research

Browse below to see my areas of research, past and present.  Links below take you to documents and data.

E.J. Edmunds (1851-1889)

Edmunds was a New Orleans-born graduate of the École Polytechnique in Paris, a cultural ambassador of French mathematics, and prominent figure in the Reconstruction-era civil rights movement

Artemas Martin (1835-1918)

Artemas Martin was an amateur mathematician who, among other things, founded an educational journal called the Mathematical Visitor.  Martin's journal reached people with talent and interest in mathematics all over the country at a time when the country's universities were not equipped for that task.

19th century puzzle columns

19th Century newspapers published mathematics problems and invited readers to submit solutions.  Columns in Sunny South and the Delaware Gazette reflect different views of mathematics that were percolating in American culture at the time and offer a window into the mathematical understanding of ordinary Americans.


19th century 

West Point

West Point is important to the history of mathematics education in the United States. Modeled in part after the École Polytechnique in Paris, it exerted an outsized influence on both pre-college and college mathematics education.

Publications

Research on the History of Mathematics Education

Zelbo, Sian (2023). A Re-examination of the Nineteenth Century French Influence on American Mathematics Education through Textbook Author Charles Davies. In: A. Karp, F. Furinghetti, G. Schubring, J. Zender, J. Prytz, K. Bjarnadóttir, and Y. Weiss (eds.), Dig Where You Stand 7: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on the History of Mathematics Education, 331-345. Münster: WTM. Link.

Zelbo, S. (2022). Building an American Mathematical Community from the Ground Up: Artemas Martin and The Mathematical Visitor. In: A. Karp (ed), Advances In The History Of Mathematics Education, 217-238. Springer, Cham. Link.

Zelbo, S. (2022). Edgar J. Edmunds: A Historical Case Study of Race in Mathematics Education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 53(5), 350-364. Link.

Zelbo, Sian. 2022. Building an American mathematics community from the ground up: Artemas Martin and the Mathematical Visitor (1877-1887). InAdvances in the History of Mathematics Education: International Studies in the History of Mathematics and Its Teaching, ed. Alexander Karp,218-238. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95235-8_9

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2020. Edgar J. Edmunds (1851-1887): A cross-cultural case study of an African American mathematics teacher who studied at the École Polytechnique. In Dig Where You Stand 6, eds. Évelyne Barbin, Kristin Bjarnadóttir, Fulvia Furinghetti, Alexander Karp, Guillaume Moussard, Johan Prytz, and Gert Schubring, 193-204. Münster: WTM. https://doi.org/10.37626/GA9783959871686.0.15

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2019. E. J. Edmunds, school integration, and white supremacist backlash in Reconstruction New Orleans. History of Education Quarterly 59(3): 379-406. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/heq.2019.26

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2019. The recreational mathematics activities of ordinary nineteenth century Americans: A case study of two mathematics puzzle columns and their contributors. British Journal for the History of Mathematics 34(3):155-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/26375451.2019.1646522 

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2019. Edgar Joseph Edmunds (1851 - 1887), mathematics teacher at the center of New Orleans’ post-Civil War fight over school integration. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University.

 

Publications on Mathematics Education

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2021. Cryptarithms. New York, NY: Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics. https://www.beammath.org/cryptarithms

 

Zelbo, Sian. 2021. COVID and the importance of casual interactions in mathematics classrooms. Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College 12(1): 53. https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/jmetc/article/view/8238/4360

 

Saul, Mark and Sian Zelbo. 2014. Camp Logic. Chapel Hill, NC: Natural Math. https://www.amazon.com/Camp-Logic-Activities-People-Natural/dp/0977693961Camp Logic is a book of logic games and activities for use in classroom, homeschool, and afterschool settings.


Questions?

Contact sianzelbomath@gmail.com to get more information on her research.