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Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Education

Mathematics Education As Dystopia: A Future Beyond, Peter Appelbaum, Charoula Stathopoulou, Constantinos Xenofontos Jul 2022

Mathematics Education As Dystopia: A Future Beyond, Peter Appelbaum, Charoula Stathopoulou, Constantinos Xenofontos

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

We argue that scholars and practitioners of mathematics education need to find new directions through recognition of its dystopic characteristics, and embrace these characteristics as both the source of challenges and method of response. This contrasts with the generally utopic approach of most scholarship in the field. We offer critical ethnomathematics education as a model, since it has its own origins in lingering dystopic legacies. A perpetual hopelessness and disempowerment is one implicit curriculum of contemporary mathematics education, where the mathematics one learns might help to describe things, yet hardly assists in transforming the reification of power and agency in …


Higher Meanings: A Speaker Series Connecting Mathematics And Religion, Lawrence M. Lesser, Patricia S. Barrientos, Ben Zeidman Jul 2022

Higher Meanings: A Speaker Series Connecting Mathematics And Religion, Lawrence M. Lesser, Patricia S. Barrientos, Ben Zeidman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

An innovative grant-funded general adult audiences international speaker series on connections between mathematics and religion yielded six 2021 (now archived) presentations. We share reflections and lessons learned, informed by two sets of surveys.


Stewardship Of Mathematics: Essential Training For Contributors To, And Users Of, The Practice Of Mathematics, Rochelle E. Tractenberg Jul 2022

Stewardship Of Mathematics: Essential Training For Contributors To, And Users Of, The Practice Of Mathematics, Rochelle E. Tractenberg

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

A steward of the discipline was originally defined as an individual to whom “we can entrust the vigor, quality, and integrity of the field”, and more specifically, as “someone who will creatively generate new knowledge, critically conserve valuable and useful ideas, and responsibly transform those understandings through writing, teaching, and application” [8]. Originally articulated for doctoral education, in 2019 the construct of stewardship was expanded so that it can also be applied to non-academic practitioners in any field, and can be initiated earlier than doctoral education [18]. In this paper, we apply this construct to the context of mathematics, and …


Towards Pedagogy Supporting Ethics In Modelling, Marie Oldfield Jul 2022

Towards Pedagogy Supporting Ethics In Modelling, Marie Oldfield

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Education for concepts such as ethics and societal responsibility that are critical in building robust and applicable mathematical and statistical models do currently exist in isolation but have not been incorporated into the mainstream curricula at the school or university level. This is partially due to the split between fields (such as mathematics, statistics, and computer science) in an educational setting but also the speed with which education is able to keep up with industry and its requirements. I argue that principles and frameworks of socially responsible modelling should begin at school level and that this would mean that ethics …


Benny, Barbara, And The Ethics Of Edtech, Geillan Aly Jul 2022

Benny, Barbara, And The Ethics Of Edtech, Geillan Aly

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Erlwanger (1973) shook the mathematics education world when he introduced Benny, a student who successfully worked through a behavioristic curriculum. Erlwanger showed how far removed Benny’s understanding of mathematics was from expectations. Erlwanger’s legacy is the basis for this comparative case study which explores students’ actions in the modern, in-class computer-centered emporium classroom. Many striking similarities are found between Pearson’s MyMathLabs (MML) and Benny’s Individually Prescribed Instruction curriculum. In this case study we meet Barbara, a student who succeeds in MML but shows little understanding of mathematical concepts and demonstrates that the legacy of Benny is his continued appearance in …


The Formal Presentation Language Of Mathematics And Communication Ethics, Marshall Gordon Jul 2022

The Formal Presentation Language Of Mathematics And Communication Ethics, Marshall Gordon

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Mathematics employs a formal language where symbols, verbs, and nouns serve to express terms, concepts, and rules that concatenate to definitions, problem-solving procedures, and proofs. Taken together these constitute the expository language of mathematics found in journals, textbooks, and demonstrations. As a communication given to informing, there are epistemological and ethical considerations that deserve examination. For in keeping with the commitment to an aesthetic of concision promulgated by tradition, the formal presentation language and style of mathematics, while valuable in furthering the body of knowledge, provides only the conclusion of an inquiry, completely excluding the language of investigation that informed …


Book Review: Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, And History By Stephen Chrisomalis, Milton Rosa, Daniel Clark Orey Jan 2022

Book Review: Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, And History By Stephen Chrisomalis, Milton Rosa, Daniel Clark Orey

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This review of Reckonings shares our thoughts on the diverse insights presented by Stephen Chrisomalis’s version of the history of numerical notation. Chrisomalis suggests that members of distinct cultural groups write numbers as an active choice in accordance with their own sociocultural contexts, which reflect the influences of historical, cognitive, social, economic, political, environmental, and cultural factors. This book integrates comparative, cognitive, and evolutionary understandings on numerical cognition with historical and linguistic evidence on the use and transformation of numeral systems through the historical advancement of numeracy. Chrisomalis offers an interesting historical perspective on numbers that builds upon three main …


An Urgent Plea For More Graduate Programs In Statistics Education, David Eli Drew, Sam Behseta, Cherie L. Ichinose Jan 2022

An Urgent Plea For More Graduate Programs In Statistics Education, David Eli Drew, Sam Behseta, Cherie L. Ichinose

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Lately, much has been written about the importance of amplifying statistics-related content in the K-12 curricula. This can be viewed in parallel or as an addendum to the existing mathematics curricula in the United States. Nevertheless, a key component of this debate is the lack of robust and cutting-edge academic programs in statistics education. In this piece, we emphasize the urgent need for investing in creating strong statistics education programs, which would significantly contribute to nurturing quantitative literacy as well as preparing a more informed citizenry in the 21st century.


The Problem Of Words: Learning To Teach Mathematics When Numbers And Languages Mix, Gladys Krause Jan 2022

The Problem Of Words: Learning To Teach Mathematics When Numbers And Languages Mix, Gladys Krause

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this piece I propose a perspective shift, from a simplified view of mathematics story problems to a more academically rigorous perspective that integrates mathematical proficiency and language practices crucial for educating bilingual students. The data presented in this article provide a window into what preparing bilingual pre-service teachers to teach mathematics might involve. I discuss issues that arise in the context of preparing Spanish-English bilingual pre-service teachers in a way that can inform their practice in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.


Lessons Learned From The Disorder Of Operations, Egan J. Chernoff Jan 2022

Lessons Learned From The Disorder Of Operations, Egan J. Chernoff

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The purpose of this article, in general, is to explore certain possible outcomes associated with an underaged gambler attempting to collect his rightful winnings. More specifically, this article is a thought experiment investigating the union of (1) skill testing questions, (2) the equation that recently broke/divided the internet, and (3) how different outcomes render different elements of the thought experiment moot. For example, when the final arbiter has total dominion over a particular outcome, the mathematics of a skill testing question is rendered moot. The article concludes with a discussion revealing how disorder of operations could be considered the teaching …


In Search Of Star Clusters: An Introduction To The K-Means Algorithm, Marcio Nascimento Jan 2022

In Search Of Star Clusters: An Introduction To The K-Means Algorithm, Marcio Nascimento

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article is a gentle introduction to K-means, a mathematical technique of processing data for further classification. We begin with a brief historical introduction, where we find connections with Plato’s Timæus, von Linné’s binomial classification, and the star clustering concept of Mary Sommerville and collaborators. Artificial intelligence algorithms use K-means as a classification methodology to learn about data in a very accurate way, because it is a quantitative procedure based on similarities.


Navigating A Calculus Course During A Pandemic: A Usma Perspective, Shane K. Smith, Tyson H. Walsh, Lee Evans Jan 2022

Navigating A Calculus Course During A Pandemic: A Usma Perspective, Shane K. Smith, Tyson H. Walsh, Lee Evans

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this article we analyze publications written about different teaching modalities and evaluate how each applies to a calculus class during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the positives and negatives of teaching and learning in a virtual, classroom, or HyFlex environment. Although arguments could be made for each environment, especially given different institutional objectives, this work aims to explain why we eventually preferred teaching our Fall 2020 multivariable calculus course in a face-to-face classroom setting at the United States Military Academy at West Point. We also offer measures of performance to compare the current COVID-19 semester with previous …


Middle School Students Generating Mathematical Problems From A Real-Life Situation, David Coffland, Ying Xie Jan 2022

Middle School Students Generating Mathematical Problems From A Real-Life Situation, David Coffland, Ying Xie

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this study, we examined the effect of different presentation formats of a realistic situation on students’ mathematical problem-posing behavior. We divided thirty-six middle school students into two groups, gave them a pretest, and then showed them a realistic, problem-posing situation in Artifact or Video format. We used Silver’s core dimensions of creativity, namely fluency, flexibility, and originality, to measure participants’ problem-posing activity. The results for the fluency measures showed that the Artifact group wrote more questions than the Video group but the same number of mathematics problems. The Video group posed problems in more mathematical domains than the Artifact …


Plane Figurate Number Proofs Without Words Explained With Pattern Blocks, Gunhan Caglayan Jan 2022

Plane Figurate Number Proofs Without Words Explained With Pattern Blocks, Gunhan Caglayan

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article focuses on an artistic interpretation of pattern block designs with primary focus on the connection between pattern blocks and plane figurate numbers. Through this interpretation, it tells the story behind a handful of proofs without words (PWWs) that are inspired by such pattern block designs.