Completing the TPI and looking at the results was very interesting and informative for me. I didn't realize my priorities and opinions on quite a few of the topics until I was actually confronted with questions about them. For example, I believe strongly in social reform, but I don't prioritize it in my Math teaching. My main concern is students' social-emotional learning, and their views towards themselves as a self-motivated, confident student. This is also why I believe I scored slightly lower in transmission.
I found it interesting after completing the TPI to think about how I could incorporate more social reform or social justice ideas into my Math lessons. While I still believe focusing on nurture is my main priority, involving social issues could result in projects that involve more relevant, real life problems students can actually care about.
Some ideas I've been thinking about:
- Volume questions related to creating houses with water bottles in Nigeria
- Graphing questions related to minimum wage
- Dean, J. (2007). "Living algebra, living wage: 8th graders learn from real-world math lessons." Rethinking Schools, 21(4), 31-35.
- http://itec-ubc.ca/wordpress/mackowetsky/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2014/02/Living-Algebra-1.pdf
- Understanding statistics, perhaps related to:
- From http://www.radicalmath.org/main.php?id=SocialJusticeMath#3
- Public Health: AIDS, asthma, health insurance, diabetes, smoking
- Educational access, funding, testing, achievement gaps
- Environment: pollution, hunger, food and water resources
- Welfare
- Immigration
- Debt, credit cards, minimum payments, interest, loans, etc.
- Lotteries
Great ideas for incorporating social justice issues in math classes!
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