For the past two years I have been teaching ‘Developing Mathematical Reasoning’ a first year undergraduate course at Birmingham using the so called Moore or discovery method championed by the Texan mathematician R.L. Moore (1882—1974). Under the method students learn (or discover?) mathematics by working through a list of problems without any reference material and present their solutions on the board whilst the other students are encouraged to comment.
Moore was a hugely influential figure in American mathematics. He was president of the American Mathematical Society in the late 30s. Three of his 50 graduate students were also presidents of the AMS and five were presidents of the Mathematical Association of America. The majority of his graduate students became academics and he has almost 1 700 mathematical descendants.
