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| WRONG! Math is everywhere! |
A super easy way for me to incorporate this would be in the "statistics and probability" unit of any grade math (Statistics is a topic included in the state standards for all middle grades math). Before any assignment was given out, I would demonstrate proper techniques of how to collect data (whether it was through research or surveying people) and make my expectations of the project very clear from the beginning. With a less concrete project, it is important for the teacher to set expectations and let students know what she will be looking for when grading. I would allow for students to pick a topic that would be easy for them to survey about or gather data on; this is a way of letting students exercise their right to "choose." This would allow the kids that are interested in baseball to do research on baseball statistics of the Chicago Cubs spanning the last 70 years, or if some students wanted to collect the data themselves, they could survey members of the community or class in order to have that data to work with.
I love the idea of "inquiry based learning" simply because it allows students to explore a topic in a way that is a bit more exciting compared to a traditional paper-and-pencil exam or an in-class worksheet that teaches a topic. Especially as a future math teacher, there are a ton of data sets, articles and graphs that can help in inquiry based learning projects; similar to the one mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.
Using the information they either collected themselves or gathered from research, the class would put together either a poster board or a presentation in which they explain the data, how they calculated mean, median and mode, and any graphics they created using the data (graphs, charts...etc.)
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Hey Sarah, I really liked your points about being able to have the students research real life uses of mathematics, because we've all been at that point where we asked, "when are we ever going to use this?". I also agree that when we set up our expectations for our students ahead of time it can help guide them during their inquiry projects. They will have a better idea and understanding of what we would be looking for and that would hopefully assist the students in making better research observations! (90)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah! Couldn't agree more. Even though it's a bit of cliche, the idea that math isn't relevant to life still plagues many math teachers--sometimes on the first day of class! Inquiry-based learning is an excellent way to show--not just tell--students that math is relevant to their lives.
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