The Chronicle stops the presses- Play offers new twist on classic story
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Graduate student channels classic horror in thesis film - Alumnus creates mobile gallery
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- Athletics updates for Feb. 15
- Baseball off to best start in program’s history
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Class in the Spotlight
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Professor helps students see the beauty of math
 Photo by Dane Sponberg Shideh Ebrahim-Zadeh encourages her students to integrate their art and design knowledge into her mathematics courses. By Monique Bos Published: Friday, September 28, 2007 “Math can be as abstract and beautiful as a piece of art or literature,” said Shideh Ebrahim-Zadeh. It’s a fitting perspective for the math professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta, who explained, “Math has been a mysterious subject for me since childhood.” An artist herself — she draws and paints — Ebrahim-Zadeh seeks to mesh her mathematics instruction with her students’ interest in art and design. “Since here the students are more visual than auditory, I try to write and draw everything on the board,” she said. “I choose, as much as I can, those problems that are somehow related to their majors — [although] sometimes it is a challenge to find those problems!” she admitted. She seeks to integrate the analytical thought processes students have developed as artists and designers into class projects. “One of their major assignments is to read a section of the textbook about the Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio on their own, and also an article by George Markowsky, who has a different opinion than the authors of our textbook,” she explained. “The students are supposed to explain whether they find Markowsky’s argument convincing and write about their own opinion of whether the golden ratio has been consciously used by artists and architects in their work.” Ebrahim-Zadeh consistently encourages students to apply their critical thinking skills to mathematics. “I always emphasize that I do not want them to memorize things in my classroom,” she explained. “I try to show the proofs [depending on] the level of the class, or give students simple examples that they can relate to. For example, we prove the Pythagorean theorem, instead of just accepting it as being true.” Independent thought is a basic part of her teaching philosophy, she said. “I always encourage my students to think for themselves. I keep asking questions as I teach to help the students reach the conclusion on their own,” she explained. Prior to joining the SCAD faculty, Ebrahim-Zadeh not only acquired college-level teaching experience, but she also dealt with various sectors of the academic population. Ebrahim-Zadeh has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and computer science and a Master of Science in statistics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also as work experience in the Atlanta area. “I [also] worked for a few years at the office of minority education at Georgia Tech, developing programs to generate various student performance reports for the university. I started teaching at Atlanta College of Art and Georgia Perimeter College in 2003,” she said. She said she hopes her students leave her classes with “a deeper appreciation for math, [and] a realization that there is more to math than just concrete things like addition and subtraction of numbers.” She said she also finds the SCAD-Atlanta environment inspiring. “I am so happy and feel so lucky to be in such an environment full of creative energy,” she said. “I always stop in the hallways to look, with admiration, at the students’ artwork, and it always makes me proud to see a good work by one of my old students, [even though] I had nothing to do with that work.” To anyone who still questions the parallels between mathematics and art, she remarked, “I always say that you do not have to be a mathematician to enjoy and appreciate math — the same way that you do not have to be an artist to enjoy and appreciate art.”  |
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