Document Type
Honors Thesis
Major
Mathematics
Advisor(s)
Justin Dimmel
Committee Members
François Amar, Dylan Dryer, Hao Hong, Michael Wittmann
Graduation Year
May 2020
Publication Date
Spring 5-2020
Abstract
By combining ideas from evolutionary biology, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, this thesis attempts to derive a new kind of crowdsourcing that could better leverage people’s collective creativity. Following a theory of knowledge presented by David Deutsch, it is argued that knowledge develops through evolutionary competition that organically emerges from a creative dialogue of trial and error. It is also argued that this model of knowledge satisfies the properties of Douglas Hofstadter’s strange loops, implying that self-reflection is a core feature of knowledge evolution. This mix of theories then is used to analyze several existing strategies of crowdsourcing and knowledge development, allowing the identification of a small number of design mechanisms that combine in different ways to create each strategy’s power. Finally, a website is proposed that combines all of these mechanisms to crowdsource the selfreflective evolutionary development of mathematics education using existing web design techniques.
Recommended Citation
Ward, Spencer, "An Evolutionary Approach to Crowdsourcing Mathematics Education" (2020). Honors College. 618.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors/618