Math is all around us, yet students, teachers and parents often overlook their significance. Through this project, students, teachers and parents have been engaged in identifying the mathematics they encounter in their daily life, documenting the artifacts (activity, observation, skill, a tangible item) and demonstrating how experiences with these artifacts is connected to the mathematics they are learning in school. The unique aspect of this project is the collaboration between teachers, students and the community with the aim of improving mathematical literacy. Furthermore, by mobilizing students as researchers, our project has supported the development of inquiry skills as they learn how to generate questions, collect and interpret data, and present their work as a contribution of new knowledge to the school community. Our project has lead to increased confidence of all participants as they begin to see themselves as mathematicians navigating the world around them. Our diverse school community is challenged by high rates of low socio-economic status, as well as a significant population of students with special educational needs, ranging from learning disabilities and anxiety to Asperger’s Spectrum Disorder. Although we are a very small school (approximately 100 students), all homeroom classroom teachers have actively engaged in this math project. This level of engagement on the part of all teachers provides a unique opportunity for action research and community involvement and these conditions set the stage for student and community learning. Our project has been a natural transition and an extension to the learning that was initiated last year with a focus on making mathematical thinking visible. As a logical continuation, we built on the excitement and interest that immediately began generating new questions and ideas.
Team Members
Karli Bergquist
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Leanne Shackelton
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Jessica MacAulay
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Jennifer Wong
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Professional Learning Goals
- Participated in a teacher-lead collaborative inquiry about students’ connections to mathematical thinking in the real world using the Professional Learning Cycle model
- Measured how students and parents related to the math in their daily life though a pre and post online survey
- Developed a community discourse about mathematics in the real world
- Built student capacity to successfully link math to real-life applications
- Documented the PLC process so that it can be shared and used as a resource and to build capacity for other teachers and schools through our Google+ page
Activities and Resources
- We designed a graphic organizer to assess awareness and understanding of the links between real-life math and the concepts we learn in school.
- We conducted an online survey of students and parents to acquire a baseline of what participants identified as mathematical in their daily lives.
- Students engaged in collaborative activities that promoted the noticing of mathematics on school field trips.
- Students participated in a school-wide Gingerbread House making activity to provide teachers with an opportunity to document students’ observations and questions as they planned and constructed their houses.
- A collection of artifacts was shared on an ongoing basis on a designated bulletin board which has helped us document our process and communicate it with the school community. A Google+ webpage has helped us to document our learning with images and reflections of “math moments.”
- Each student identified a source of mathematical knowledge that is personal to them as an artifact (e.g., a family recipe, a game, a person with a particular skill) and conducted a research project to highlight the mathematical concepts, skills and lessons it can provide.
- Students will present their learning via a community math fair which engages all students, parents and the extended community.
- The math survey was administered twice to assess changes in attitudes and dispositions toward math use.
- Through these activities, teachers, students and parents have had multiple opportunities to engage in mathematical conversations which will build their confidence as mathematicians.
Unexpected Challenges
- Time required to sort and analyze data
- Expanding the project’s goals to the whole school
- Keeping records of math moments, and how to sort or present them to be used in meaningful ways
- Using the Google+ resource as an opportunity to push each other’s thinking by posting questions or comments to the posts of others
Enhancing Student Learning and Development
If students regularly investigate the mathematics in their daily life, they will build deeper connections to mathematical thinking and reasoning.
This conjecture is supported by research in mathematics education. Building on the work of Jo Boaler, our project has contributed to learning by demystifying mathematics for the participants by providing opportunities for building increased confidence that they are all mathematical thinkers. As students explicitly made mathematical connections to the concepts they experience in daily life (such as estimation, computations, patterning, angles, predicting and problem-solving), they have been more successful achieving the expectations of the curriculum through sense making and discourse. The inspiration for our math fair based on a collection of community math knowledge comes from Lisa Lunney-Borden and David Wagner who developed Show Me Your Math (http://showmeyourmath.ca/) and work from a philosophy of learning together with the community. We believe that our project will have similar results for participants as they become increasingly aware and skillful in their mathematical interactions with the world.
Sharing
Building on the philosophy that the environment is the third teacher, our school dedicated presentation space for project documentation. Our Google+ page allowed us to share our thinking among teachers. Digital updates have been regularly sent to parents via Twitter and our school webpage. We have posted our math moments graphic organizers to share with others and have used them to provoke new questions or inquiries. The culmination of our sharing happened with a whole math fair in which students presented the results of their investigations to parents, community members and other students.
Project Evaluation
The teacher participants in the project have documented their learning in the PLC through posts on the Google+ webpage in the style of a blog. This has allowed us to review the process to determine if we have met our learning goals. We have also developed an online survey which has given us pre- and post-survey results for students which is intended to capture their thinking when they use math in daily life. The post-survey results demonstrate that students are able to make more thoughtful, specific and varied responses after engaging in the project. The collection of artifacts that were presented as part of a school-wide interactive display captured the depth and creativity of students mathematical thinking from K-6. Anyone visiting our school will undoubtedly hear our new mantra out loud: Math is everywhere!
Resources Used
Website detailing the Show Me Your Math initiative that began in Nova Scotia
What’s Math Got to Do with It? by Jo Boaler.
https://www.youcubed.org/whats-math-got-to-do-with-it-revised-edition/