<
https://hechingerreport.org/to-engage-students-in-math-educators-try-connecting-it-to-their-culture/>
"Before she got to the math in her lesson on linear equations last fall, Sydney
Kealanahele asked her class of eighth graders on Oahu why
kalo, or taro root,
is so important in Hawaii. What do you know about
kalo, she asked them. Have
you ever picked it?
A boy who had never spoken in class, and never seemed even slightly interested
in math, raised his hand.
“He said, ‘I pick
kalo with my grandma. She has a farm,’” Kealanahele
recalled. “He was excited to tell us about that.”
Class discussion got animated. Everybody knew about
poi, the creamy staple
Hawaiian food made from mashed taro. Others had even noticed that there were
fewer taro farms on Oahu.
That’s when Kealanahele guided the conversation to the whiteboard, plotting
data on pounds of taro produced over time on a graph, which created a perfect
descending line. The class talked about why there is less taro production,
which led to a discussion about the shortage of farm labor.
Kealanahele had taught eighth-grade math for six years at a campus of the
Kamehameha Schools, but this was the first time she had started a lesson with a
conversation about farming. The idea came from professional development she’d
just completed, in ethnomathematics, an approach that connects math to culture
by embedding math in a story about something relevant to students’ lives.
Ethnomathematics isn’t new, but until recently it was limited to a niche area
of educational and anthropological research on how different cultures use math.
Over the past couple of decades, it has evolved into one of several efforts to
create more engaging and inclusive math classrooms, particularly for Black,
Hispanic and Indigenous students, who tend to score lower on federal tests than
their Asian and white peers. Ethnomathematics advocates say that persistent
achievement gaps are in part a result of overly abstract math instruction
that’s disconnected from student experience, and that there’s an urgent need
for new approaches that recognize mathematical knowledge as it’s practiced
outside of textbooks."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-rainforest-patrol-crowdsourced-housing/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
