Education Commons^™

Calculus Of The Impossible: Review Of The Improbability Principle (2014) By David Hand And The Logic Of Miracles (2018) By Lásló Mérő, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

David J. Hand. 2014. The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day (New York, NY: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0374175344.

Lásló Mérő. 2018. The Logic of Miracles: Making Sense of Rare, Really Rare, and Impossibly Rare Events (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0300224153.

David Hand and Lásló Mérő both grapple with the occurrence of seemingly impossible events in these two popular science books. In this comparative review, I describe the two books, and explain why I prefer Hand's treatment of the impossible.

Forewarned Is Forearmed: Review Of Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards And Risk Reduction In The Modern World By Timothy H. Dixon (2017), Jason Makansi

Numeracy

Timothy H. Dixon. 2017. Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards and Risk Reduction in the Modern World. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) 300 pp. ISBN 978-1108113663.

Curbing Catastrophe for the most part lives up to what is claimed in the foreword: “…a compelling account of recent and historical disasters, both natural and human-caused, drawing on common themes and providing a holistic understanding of hazards, disasters, and mitigation for anyone interested in this important and topical subject.” This is a pretty thorough treatment of an extraordinarily complex subject, and the gaps identified in this review should be considered explications more than …

Lynn Steen's Imprint On Demographic Change And The Demand For Higher Education, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

Nathan D. Grawe. 2018. Demographic Change and the Demand for Higher Education (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press) 192 pp. ISBN 978-1421424132.

This essay introduces and excerpts my Demographic Change and the Demand for Higher Education, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The book reflects Lynn Steen's vision of quantitative reasoning as more to do with the quality of thought than the impressiveness of the mathematical tools involved. The excerpt lays out the basic demographic challenge facing higher education and how a refinement of simple headcount forecasts can support institutions of higher education as they make preparations.

The Connection Between Financial Literacy And Numeracy: A Case Study From India, J.D Jayaraman, Saigeetha Jambunathan, Kenneth Counselman

Numeracy

Making financial decisions involves mathematical calculations, both simple and complex. It is a well-documented fact that financial literacy levels among young people all over the world are quite low and that these low levels contribute to various undesirable outcomes with respect to personal financial well-being and the economy as a whole. This study explores the relationship between financial literacy and numeracy by measuring and modeling the relationship between financial literacy and numeracy levels among high school students (N = 586) in India. The results show a strong relationship between numeracy and financial literacy skills. Low numeracy is associated with …

Six Propositions Of A Social Theory Of Numeracy: Interpreting An Influential Theory Of Literacy, Jeffrey Craig, Lynette Guzmán

Numeracy

We share our experiences comprehending social theory as it applies to numeracy scholarship. We build on existing arguments that social theory—explicitly acknowledging the presence and influence of histories, power, and purposes—offers something important to scholars who study and discuss numeracy. In this article, we translate the six propositions of one particular social theory of literacy into propositions about numeracy, then we explore the meaning of each proposition, its connections to existing scholarship, and its implications. This article emerges from two literature reviews: one on social theories (especially their application to and development in literacy) and one on numeracy. We bring …

Quantitative Literacy: Now More Than Ever, Gail O. Mellow

Numeracy

This editorial highlights the eloquent words of Drs. Bernard Madison and Lynn Arthur Steen who, in the inaugural issue of Numeracy, note that quantitative literacy (QL) provides “tools for survival” in a highly competitive world. I discuss how QL is desperately needed at a precarious time for our nation’s democracy and how at LaGuardia Community College, and community colleges across the nation, important and creative work is being undertaken to build students’ math skills. The pivotal role of faculty is discussed and a call is made for colleges to support faculty as they undertake the challenging work of building QL …

Parts Of The Whole: Hands On Statistics, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

In this column we describe a hands-on data collection lab for an introductory statistics course. The exercise elicits issues of normality, sampling, and sample mean comparisons. Based on volcanology models of tephra dispersion, this lab leads students to question the accuracy of some assumptions made in the model, particularly regarding the normality of the dispersal of tephra of identical size in a given atmospheric layer.

Review Of Painting By Numbers: How To Sharpen Your Bs Detector And Smoke Out The "Experts" By Jason Makansi, Denis Voytenko

Numeracy

Makansi, Jason. 2016. Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the "Experts". Tucson, AZ: Layla Dog Press. 196 pp. ISBN 978-0-9984259-0-0.

Jason Makansi’s book, Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke out the "experts," aims to get people to start thinking more about the errors in models and data presented to them on a daily basis. The book is written in a friendly and accessible way without excessive jargon. Throughout the book, Makansi provides the reader with twelve commandments to follow to be able to evaluate questionable claims along with …

Models As Weapons: Review Of Weapons Of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality And Threatens Democracy By Cathy O’Neil (2016), Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

Cathy O’Neil. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (New York, NY: Crown) 272 pp. ISBN 978-0553418811.

Accessible to a wide readership, Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy provides a lucid yet alarming account of the extensive reach of mathematical models in influencing all of our lives. With a particular eye towards social justice, O’Neil not only warns modelers to be cognizant of the effects of their work on real people—especially vulnerable groups who have less power to fight back—but also encourages laypersons to take initiative …

Why I Believe People Need Painting By Numbers, Jason Makansi

Numeracy

Jason Makansi.2016. Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts (Tucson AZ: Layla Dog Press). 196 pp. ISBN 978-0998425900.

This piece briefly introduces my Painting By Numbers, which aims to take the core messages of the QL/QR community from academic and professional circles to the rest of the citizenry. I describe the book in the context of the critical need for the most basic numeracy tools to help consumers of news, information, and analysis—delivered through traditional and contemporary social media outlets—determine where a reported numerical result lies on the scale from utter nonsense …

Using The Quantitative Literacy And Reasoning Assessment (Qlra) For Early Detection Of Students In Need Of Academic Support In Introductory Courses In A Quantitative Discipline: A Case Study, Nathan D. Grawe, Kristin O'Connell

Numeracy

As the number of young people attending college has increased, the diversity of college students’ educational backgrounds has also risen. Some students enter introductory courses with math anxiety or gaps in their quantitative training that impede their ability to master or even grasp relevant disciplinary content. Too often professors learn of these anxieties and gaps only during the post mortem of the first midterm. By that time, a good portion of a student’s grade is determined and successful recovery may be impossible. During the 2016-17 academic year, the Department of Economics at Carleton College ran a pilot project using the …

Quantitative Map Literacy: A Cross Between Map Literacy And Quantitative Literacy, Ming Xie, H. L. Vacher, Steven Reader, Elizabeth Walton

Numeracy

We define quantitative map literacy (QML), a cross between map literacy and quantitative literacy (QL), as the concepts and skills required to accurately read, use, interpret, and understand the quantitative information embedded in a geospatial representation of data on a geographic background. Long used as tools in technical geographic fields, maps are now a common vehicle for communicating quantitative information to the public. As such, QML has potential to stand alongside health numeracy and financial literacy as an identifiable subdomain of transdisciplinary QL.

What concepts and skills are crucial for QML? The obvious answer is, “It depends on the type …

Increasing Statistical Literacy By Exploiting Lexical Ambiguity Of Technical Terms, Jennifer J. Kaplan, Neal Rogness

Numeracy

Instructional inattention to language poses a barrier for students in entry-level science courses, in part because students may perceive a subject as difficult solely based on the lack of understanding of the vocabulary. In addition, the technical use of terms that have different everyday meanings may cause students to misinterpret statements made by instructors, leading to an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the domain. Terms that have different technical and everyday meanings are said to have lexical ambiguity and statistics, as a discipline, has many lexically ambiguous terms. This paper presents a cyclic process for designing activities to address lexical …

Disrupting Dominant Discourses: A (Re)Introduction To Social Practice Theories Of Adult Numeracy, Helen M. Oughton

Numeracy

The role of dominant discourse in constructing a deficit view of adult numeracy is examined, using reports from recent international surveys of adult skills as illustrative examples. Social practice theory is introduced as an alternative perspective for examining the ways adults actually use numeracy in their daily lives and work. This perspective suggests the test items used by large-scale surveys such as PIACC are only proxies for real-life numeracy skills, and that performance in such tests may misrepresent the numeracy skills of adults. Instead, social practice theory suggests that adults may have informal, situated numeracy practices that serve them adequately …

Quantitative Reasoning: A Guided Pathway From Two- To Four-Year Colleges, Eric Gaze

Numeracy

In this editorial, I place the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) movement within the national context of math pathways and the broader Guided Pathways initiative. Community colleges in particular are experiencing a radical re-envisioning of their math requirements. Thoughtful reflection on the communication and computation needs of their students for the 21^st century has led to state-wide adoption of QR curricula as an alternative pathway to the traditional College Algebra route. These Guided Pathways have shown great promise in boosting graduation rates and addressing equity and the achievement gap for our most vulnerable, first-generation, low-income students.