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What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

HI, thanks for bringing this topic. I am enjoying the discussions on how Math is taught in different countries and how we can best incorporate these practices. Some of the discussion is in the other post by Frank Marfai.

I have begun to use more cultural context in my teaching. Students love projects where they can choose an aspect of the problem, even create their problem. This term, in Calculus, I stole an idea from Pat Riley at AMATYC (How large is Simba's kingdom?). I assigned them the problem of finding the horizon area from any tower or peak in the whole world. It was a fun group project, where they showed the Math of calculating the area, then giving fun facts & cultural significance of the spot. Interestingly, few students who are afraid of calculus found passion in the cultural aspect and spoke eloquently in their presentations. However, it does take time and if we have a large portion to cover, we have to pick and choose such impactful projects.

Typically, I try to include some global cultural context to make them aware of the world outside. But I think, I need to give a better introduction. For instance, I assign a project on world travel in Contemporary Math, where they choose 5 places on 5 continents. The idea is to find the shortest round trip path. I was shocked to see several groups not realizing that Mexico is in the same continent as the US.

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

Manisha -

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas about adding more cultural context to your teaching. Your example about Simba's Kingdom and what you did with it sounds very intriguing. Would you mind sharing your project so that others could also learn from it? That would be great. I agree that many students in this country are not very knowledgeable in geography, but we can always try to put math on their mind with cultural and geographic examples. 

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

Sure, here is the project that I used in Calc 1 recently, it was a success and students found interesting facts to share. I took the idea that Pat Riley presented at the ITL themed session at AMATYC last year, added a cultural context in the rubric. Here it is, feel to free to use and modify.

Choose your own tower (or horizon project)

How large is Simba's kingdom? Lion king holds the cub at a high plateau and claims his kingdom spans as far as one can see. How will you calculate the horizon area? Here is a reference with an explanation of a simplified equation.  where h is height in feet or meters and d is distance to horizon in miles or km. With Google Earth, locate any tower of interest or a natural peak and find out how far of a horizon area you can see from the top. We use linear approximation for angles as mentioned in the reference, so sin𝜃=𝜃 holds. We assume that the region is flat or circular rather than a curved surface.

Rubric:

------------------------------
Manisha Ranade
Associate Professor
Santa Fe College
Gainesville FL
http://www.sfcollege.edu

Original Message:
Sent: 04-23-2024 10:35:21
From: Barbara Leitherer
Subject: IMPACTful Discussions: Influences of Research and Cultural Environment on Teaching Practices

Manisha -

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas about adding more cultural context to your teaching. Your example about Simba's Kingdom and what you did with it sounds very intriguing. Would you mind sharing your project so that others could also learn from it? That would be great. I agree that many students in this country are not very knowledgeable in geography, but we can always try to put math on their mind with cultural and geographic examples. 

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

Sure, here is the project that I used in Calc 1 recently, it was a success and students found interesting facts to share. I took the idea that Pat Riley presented at the ITL themed session at AMATYC last year, added a cultural context in the rubric. Here it is, feel to free to use and modify.

Choose your own tower (or horizon project)

How large is Simba's kingdom? Lion king holds the cub at a high plateau and claims his kingdom spans as far as one can see. How will you calculate the horizon area? Here is a reference with an explanation of a simplified equation.  where h is height in feet or meters and d is distance to horizon in miles or km. With Google Earth, locate any tower of interest or a natural peak and find out how far of a horizon area you can see from the top. We use linear approximation for angles as mentioned in the reference, so sin𝜃=𝜃 holds. We assume that the region is flat or circular rather than a curved surface.

Rubric:

------------------------------
Manisha Ranade
Associate Professor
Santa Fe College
Gainesville FL
http://www.sfcollege.edu

Original Message:
Sent: 04-23-2024 10:35:21
From: Barbara Leitherer
Subject: IMPACTful Discussions: Influences of Research and Cultural Environment on Teaching Practices

Manisha -

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas about adding more cultural context to your teaching. Your example about Simba's Kingdom and what you did with it sounds very intriguing. Would you mind sharing your project so that others could also learn from it? That would be great. I agree that many students in this country are not very knowledgeable in geography, but we can always try to put math on their mind with cultural and geographic examples. 

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

Thank you for asking and starting this post, Barbara.  There are two parts to my response, and in part due to me reflecting on Matthew Watts's post in a related thread in which he shared slides from some of the international approaches he studied, and in particular Asian countries.  I remember while in the graduate school more than a decade ago, we had a visiting professor who gave a talk about the challenges faced by US colleges and universities in the mathematical preparation of future and current elementary school teachers.  An article regarding his work was shared with graduate students and faculty prior to the talk at the time (sometime in 2010, citation below this post).

The visiting professor had talked about the curriculum and textbook that he and a co-author had developed to train future elementary and high school teachers, which also used selected books from the Primary Mathematics sequence in Singapore Mathematics in conjunction with their textbook in supporting and building future teacher's ways of thinking about mathematics.  In learning about his work (and Singapore Mathematics) the idea of bar models resonated with me and had I used those principles in supporting student's thinking my own classes, especially when teaching in the Mathematics for Elementary Teachers courses.  His work at the time, based on international research, was one that influenced my future teaching. The visiting professor in question was Scott Baldridge, he later went on to become the one of lead curriculum writers of the Eureka Math/EngageNY curriculum, which is now widely used across the United States both at the Elementary and Secondary levels.  I see this as an illustration in which proven international best practices in mathematics became part of the standard US curriculum.

I would personally love to learn more about the culturally responsive part of the teaching and learning.  I live in the Southwest.  At a nearby university to the south of our own, I've seen powerful examples of its potential and possibilities in mathematics (see link to one such example) when we affirm and include the cultures and histories of the students whom we teach.  Mexico is our neighbor to the South, where many of our students at our institution have cultural ties to.

Manisha, I enjoyed reading your examples of global learning.  I am curious about other colleagues' experiences. There is so much we can learn from each other.

Source: 

Baldridge, S. The Singapore mathematics curriculum and implications for adopting and developing curricula in the US. Retrieved April 21, 2024 from https://www.math.mnrt.net/standards/Scott%20Baldridge%20Story%20of%20Mathematics%20%20REV%201.pdf .

------------------------------
Frank Marfai, Ph.D.
Phoenix College
MARICOPA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Mathematics Faculty | Mathematics
President | Arizona Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges
Chair, Research in Mathematics Education for Two-Year Colleges ANet
1202 W. Thomas Road, Phoenix, AZ 85013
frank.marfai@phoenixcollege.edu
https://www.phoenixcollege.edu/

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2024 09:17:47
From: Barbara Leitherer
Subject: IMPACTful Discussions: Influences of Research and Cultural Environment on Teaching Practices

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

Hi Frank,

Thanks for sharing your experience of the influences of the Singapore mathematics curriculum on your teaching for preservice elementary mathematics teachers; and a project for a culturally responsive curriculum for a pre-calculus course.

The Singapore mathematics curriculum looks familiar to me since the mathematics curriculum, teaching, and learning are similar across East Asian countries. You might be interested in Dr. Jinfa Cai's article: "Singaporean Students' Mathematical Thinking in Problem Solving and Problem Posing: An Exploratory Study". Please see the attached file.

I would like to learn more about the culturally relevant curriculum for precalculus. Unfortunately, I cannot find more examples on the website. Is it possible for you to share more with us? Thanks.

------------------------------
Hong Yuan
CUNY Borough of Manhattan CC
New York City NY

Original Message:
Sent: 04-21-2024 17:52:35
From: Frank Marfai
Subject: IMPACTful Discussions: Influences of Research and Cultural Environment on Teaching Practices

Thank you for asking and starting this post, Barbara.  There are two parts to my response, and in part due to me reflecting on Matthew Watts's post in a related thread in which he shared slides from some of the international approaches he studied, and in particular Asian countries.  I remember while in the graduate school more than a decade ago, we had a visiting professor who gave a talk about the challenges faced by US colleges and universities in the mathematical preparation of future and current elementary school teachers.  An article regarding his work was shared with graduate students and faculty prior to the talk at the time (sometime in 2010, citation below this post).

The visiting professor had talked about the curriculum and textbook that he and a co-author had developed to train future elementary and high school teachers, which also used selected books from the Primary Mathematics sequence in Singapore Mathematics in conjunction with their textbook in supporting and building future teacher's ways of thinking about mathematics.  In learning about his work (and Singapore Mathematics) the idea of bar models resonated with me and had I used those principles in supporting student's thinking my own classes, especially when teaching in the Mathematics for Elementary Teachers courses.  His work at the time, based on international research, was one that influenced my future teaching. The visiting professor in question was Scott Baldridge, he later went on to become the one of lead curriculum writers of the Eureka Math/EngageNY curriculum, which is now widely used across the United States both at the Elementary and Secondary levels.  I see this as an illustration in which proven international best practices in mathematics became part of the standard US curriculum.

I would personally love to learn more about the culturally responsive part of the teaching and learning.  I live in the Southwest.  At a nearby university to the south of our own, I've seen powerful examples of its potential and possibilities in mathematics (see link to one such example) when we affirm and include the cultures and histories of the students whom we teach.  Mexico is our neighbor to the South, where many of our students at our institution have cultural ties to.

Manisha, I enjoyed reading your examples of global learning.  I am curious about other colleagues' experiences. There is so much we can learn from each other.

Source: 

Baldridge, S. The Singapore mathematics curriculum and implications for adopting and developing curricula in the US. Retrieved April 21, 2024 from https://www.math.mnrt.net/standards/Scott%20Baldridge%20Story%20of%20Mathematics%20%20REV%201.pdf .

------------------------------
Frank Marfai, Ph.D.
Phoenix College
MARICOPA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Mathematics Faculty | Mathematics
President | Arizona Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges
Chair, Research in Mathematics Education for Two-Year Colleges ANet
1202 W. Thomas Road, Phoenix, AZ 85013
frank.marfai@phoenixcollege.edu
https://www.phoenixcollege.edu/

Original Message:
Sent: 04-16-2024 09:17:47
From: Barbara Leitherer
Subject: IMPACTful Discussions: Influences of Research and Cultural Environment on Teaching Practices

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

------------------------------
Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
------------------------------

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

Hello AMATYC members,

I did my education from elementary school to master's level in India. I am teaching Mathematics here in USA since 2001. I have taught in high schools, community colleges and university. I have worked as tutor, supplementary instructor, adjunct, fulltime instructor and chairperson of Mathematics department.

I have observed lot of differences in teaching and assessment methodologies, in Mathematics education, between India and USA. I realized that culture plays an important role that drives the policies. For example, rarely you will see a student working, in India, while studying in high school or college and that is a great advantage for the students of India enabling them to focus on studies. Parents of India devote their resources/earnings/savings on the children's education because of the culture that strongly believes that education alone cannot be lost, when compared to other materialistic assets and resources.

I am uploading a file on this perspective for your review and comments.

Thank you,

Radhakrishnan Palaniswamy

(Krish)

Assistant Professor - Mathematics

The Community College of Baltimore County

Owings Mills, MD

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

Hello all,

This is a great discussion. My education of dual MS in Geology and Mathematics as well as coming from Sri Lanka has always helped me in my teaching over the years. I use some ways to connect with my students with their majors with some examples or discussions.

 In Gen-ed classes often students ask why we learn these math? Do we use them? I always tell them that I never imagined my self to be a math professor when I was in college. But, here I am. The reason I could make my switch is the way I analyze a problem, solve them and come to a conclusion. It is a process. Math is the subject that teaches you those skills. I ask them do you think you need them in your major/career to be successful? Then they begin to realize yes, that's true. Later in the semester when they get their surveying projects or some other engineering or physics projects they come and show me their work sometimes ask for some ideas. I think giving them the sense of the value of seeing things differently is helpful to realize the value of mathematical skills.

Other important skill I use in my teaching is I always like to show them some visuals, such as drawings, or illustrations with the given information. This skill comes from my training of drawing maps, and geological features I guess. Specially these days it is hard for us to make our students use pen and paper for even taking the notes.

I am always into active learning and I think it is because that I used to learn by working with samples, or going into the field. This semester in a nice sunny day a student asked me can we go out to learn today. May be I will think of this in future lesson plan!

Chamila Ranaweera,

James Madison University, VA

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?

Hello all,

This is a great discussion. My education of dual MS in Geology and Mathematics as well as coming from Sri Lanka has always helped me in my teaching over the years. I use some ways to connect with my students with their majors with some examples or discussions.

 In Gen-ed classes often students ask why we learn these math? Do we use them? I always tell them that I never imagined my self to be a math professor when I was in college. But, here I am. The reason I could make my switch is the way I analyze a problem, solve them and come to a conclusion. It is a process. Math is the subject that teaches you those skills. I ask them do you think you need them in your major/career to be successful? Then they begin to realize yes, that's true. Later in the semester when they get their surveying projects or some other engineering or physics projects they come and show me their work sometimes ask for some ideas. I think giving them the sense of the value of seeing things differently is helpful to realize the value of mathematical skills.

Other important skill I use in my teaching is I always like to show them some visuals, such as drawings, or illustrations with the given information. This skill comes from my training of drawing maps, and geological features I guess. Specially these days it is hard for us to make our students use pen and paper for even taking the notes.

I am always into active learning and I think it is because that I used to learn by working with samples, or going into the field. This semester in a nice sunny day a student asked me can we go out to learn today. May be I will think of this in future lesson plan!

Chamila Ranaweera,

James Madison University, VA

What proven international math teaching or research practices would you like to incorporate in your classroom (in the US)?  How do you embed the cultural context and environment in which you teach?