About these pages

You can see these pages online and share this set of files on Github
Here's my original Learning Plan

Update, June 2024

This supersedes some of what I wrote below....

I've decided to go with the O.U, starting with course MU123 Discovering Mathematics (https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/qualifications/details/mu123?orig=q31) in October 2024.

Teaching myself was fun, but I reached a point where my ability to teach myself wasn't good enough to carry me where I want to go. It was possible, but frustrating. I got from scratch to near GCSE standard though, which is satisfying.

I don't think I'll do the whole O.U degree, for reasons set out below (cost, tired of completing degrees). Or at least, I don't think I'll complete it at any great speed; the whole 16 years allowed is more likely. But the topics I want to understand are covered at level 2, in M208 Pure Mathematics (https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/qualifications/details/m208?orig=q31) so I could get there in 3 years.

I'll leave this mini-site on my GitHub pages, complete with links to my handwritten notes. But my own notes will move on and these pages will freeze in time.

Thank you for taking an interest.

Okay, the previous content of this page follows...

Hi, I'm Marsh and I'm learning maths from the internet

I put together this plan and collection of resources because, as an older adult, I realised I was interested in mathematical topics but completely unequipped to understand them.

I had never been taught maths properly. My secondary education in the 1980s UK stole all joy from learning maths, so that I struggled through GCSE maths and then dropped the subject.^[1] I was in the first year to take GCSEs so that might have been why the teaching was crap for those of us without an initial aptitude.

After completing my MSc in computing, now aged 50, I found there were communities of autodidact maths learners and many great learning resources available free online. I considered taking a maths undergraduate degree, such as the OU's Q31 BSc Mathematics but I had just finished three degrees, one after another, over seventeen years. I wanted a gentle intellectual hobby to progress in my own time; so here we are. Also, even at the OU's reasonable prices, BSc Mathematics would take £20,000 (2023 prices) out of my retirement fund.

Curriculum choice

I adopted the U.S Maths education curriculum for this. It stacks knowledge logically, with somewhat agreed content, all the way from primary to tertiary/undergraduate studies. When I compared it to GCSE and A-Level maths in the UK the latter seemed a mess, with an array of exam boards and a muddled National Curriculum.

The UK curriculum seems to prioritise maths for practical daily application, which is laudable in its way, but my daily numeracy is fine; I want to learn mathematics because I enjoy mathematics.

Markdown for Obsidian

I value ease of use and portability in my notes. These are plain-text Markdown files. I'm using them in the Obsidian note taking tool but you should be able to read them in a wide variety of tools and formats.

Pages are both tagged for Obsidian users, and sorted into folders for everyone else. Creativity might thrive on the free association of files in a flat structure, but learning a subject incrementally demands a more structured approach.

Typographic unconventions

I'm not preparing this vault for publication or beauty contests. I'll make single pages consistent and readable, buy syntax and typography will be inconsistent across pages; what's a Heading: 2 on one page might be H3 or just bold on another. Sorry.

Why the 0-1 - folders and filenames?

For folders it's a way to order folders by education level. For pages it's to put indexes/maps of content alphabetically at the top. I'd usually use an underscore prefix _filename, but that doesn't serve correctly on Github Pages.

0 Primary level, indexes are 0-0 etc.
1 Secondary level, indexes are 1-0 etc.
2 Undergraduate level, indexes are 2-0 etc.
3 Postgraduate level, indexes are 3-0 etc.

Thanks, Tytherington School, Macclesfield. Not.↩︎