Description. Individually produce an original work of mathematical communication for a clearly identified audience. Choose a mathematical subject distinct from that of your Paper and Talk, and a medium suited to your audience. The work must treat its subject accurately and with sufficient depth, and draw on the techniques developed throughout the course. Its precise form and scope will be agreed upon with the instructor after the pitch in Class 7.3. It must be feasible within the final four weeks of the course. A modest, complete work is preferable to an ambitious but unfinished one. The project will be evaluated on the mathematical communication it accomplishes, not on the sophistication of its production.
Submit the finished work along with a one-page statement. In this statement, identify the intended audience and aim; explain the principal choices about content, structure, and medium; describe how feedback informed the project; and point explicitly to the course content upon which the project draws. State whether you used any technological tools or generative AI and, if so, explain how. Cite all sources and borrowed materials, and acknowledge any feedback or technical assistance.
Examples
- A short video which uses animation, a physical demonstration, or the blackboard to explain a theorem to a broad audience.
- An interactive applet, accompanied by a guiding explanation, which helps students visualize a difficult result.
- A feature article about a mathematician's research, written to the editorial guidelines of a particular publication.
- A visual website which presents a map of the broad areas of mathematics and connects each to its uses in society.
- A podcast episode which introduces a research subject through a conversation with a mathematician who works on it.
- A formalization of a classical theorem in Lean, accompanied by an account of what the formalization made explicit.
- An illustrated booklet, zine, or comic which presents a mathematical subject to children or high-school students.
Rubric
Content 25 points
- 25 points
- The Final Project treats a mathematical subject of substance, gets it right, supports its central claims, places its subject in context, and leaves its audience understanding something they did not understand before.
- 20 points
- The Final Project treats its subject accurately and substantively, but leaves one claim insufficiently supported, gives its subject thin context, or falls short of its aim in one important respect.
- 10 points
- The Final Project gives only a superficial account of its subject, uses mathematics in unconvincing ways, or contains an error which substantially obstructs its aim.
- 0 points
- The Final Project conveys no meaningful mathematical content, or fundamentally misrepresents its subject.
Clarity 25 points
- 25 points
- The Final Project can be followed from beginning to end by the audience it is made for. Each idea, term, and representation is intelligible when needed, and the work moves in an order which makes sense.
- 20 points
- The Final Project can be followed for the most part, though an idea is left unclear, a term goes unexplained, or its order or proportions work against it.
- 10 points
- Only someone with more mathematical background than the intended audience can follow the Final Project, or its organization obscures much of what it has to say.
- 0 points
- The Final Project is not comprehensible to the audience it is made for.
Audience 20 points
- 20 points
- The Final Project is made for a particular audience, and its choices of what to include, what to leave out, and how much to assume all answer to that audience.
- 15 points
- The Final Project is made for a particular audience and is well pitched to it overall, but one choice of what to include, what to leave out, or how much to assume does not answer fully to that audience.
- 10 points
- The Final Project has an audience in view, but is pitched at more than one at once, or assumes a background which that audience does not have.
- 0 points
- The Final Project is made without regard for who is meant to receive it.
Craft 15 points
- 15 points
- The medium serves the project's aim and is handled with command. Every tool behind the work, generative AI included, is used where it serves the work and set aside where it does not.
- 10 points
- The Final Project is competently made, but one choice weakens the communication, a tool or technique is used where it does not help, or effort has gone into polish at the expense of substance.
- 5 points
- The Final Project is made clumsily enough that its medium gets in the way of what it has to say, avoidable technical problems interfere with the communication, or a tool has been allowed to make a choice the student should have made.
- 0 points
- The Final Project shows no command of its medium, or cannot be viewed or used as intended.
Statement 15 points
- 15 points
- The statement accounts fully for the work, its audience and aim, the principal choices and the reasons behind them, how feedback informed the project, the role, if any, of technological tools and generative AI, and the course content upon which the student drew.
- 10 points
- The statement addresses each required matter, but treats one thinly or records a choice without giving the reason behind it.
- 5 points
- The statement describes the work, but omits several required matters or gives little account of the reasoning behind it.
- 0 points
- No statement is submitted, or the statement does not account for the work.
Total 100 points