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Science and Mathematics Education Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education
Envisioning A Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective, Gizem Karaali, Philip I. Choi, Sara Owsley Sood, Eric B. Grosfils
Envisioning A Quantitative Studies Center: A Liberal Arts Perspective, Gizem Karaali, Philip I. Choi, Sara Owsley Sood, Eric B. Grosfils
Numeracy
Several academic institutions are searching for ways to help students develop their quantitative reasoning abilities and become more adept at higher-level tasks that involve quantitative skills. In this note we study the particular way Pomona College has framed this issue within its own context and what it plans to do about it. To this end we describe our efforts as members of a campus-wide committee that was assigned the duty of investigating the feasibility of founding a quantitative studies center on our campus. These efforts involved analysis of data collected through a faculty questionnaire, discipline-specific input obtained from each departmental …
A Rubric For Assessing Quantitative Reasoning In Written Arguments, Nathan D. Grawe, Neil S. Lutsky, Christopher J. Tassava
A Rubric For Assessing Quantitative Reasoning In Written Arguments, Nathan D. Grawe, Neil S. Lutsky, Christopher J. Tassava
Numeracy
This paper introduces a rubric for assessing QR in student papers and analyzes the inter-rater reliability of the instrument based on a reading session involving 11 participants. Despite the disciplinary diversity of the group (which included a faculty member from the arts and literature, two staff members, and representatives from five natural and social science departments), the rubric produced reliable measures of QR use and proficiency in a sample of student papers. Readers agreed on the relevance and extent of QR in 75.0 and 81.9 percent of cases respectively (corresponding to Cohen’s κ= 0.611 and 0.693). A four-category measure of …
Engaging Math-Avoidant College Students, M. Paul Latiolais, Wendi Laurence
Engaging Math-Avoidant College Students, M. Paul Latiolais, Wendi Laurence
Numeracy
This paper is an informal, personal account of how we, as two college teachers, became interested in math anxiety, decided to explore it amongst students at our institution in order to inform our teaching, and became convinced that the massive problem is math avoidance. We tried discussion groups, but few students attended, although those that did made useful suggestions. Thus informed, we designed an innovative course, Confronting College Mathematics as a Humanities course with the possibility of credit toward the math requirement, but it was undersubscribed in its first offering and had to be canceled. How can we get college …
Integration With Writing Programs: A Strategy For Quantitative Reasoning Program Development, Nathan D. Grawe, Carol A. Rutz
Integration With Writing Programs: A Strategy For Quantitative Reasoning Program Development, Nathan D. Grawe, Carol A. Rutz
Numeracy
As an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, quantitative reasoning (QR) risks falling through the cracks between the traditional “silos” of higher education. This article describes one strategy for developing a truly cross-campus QR initiative: leverage the existing structures of campus writing programs by placing QR in the context of argument. We first describe the integration of Carleton College’s Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge initiative with the Writing Program. Based on our experience, we argue that such an approach leads to four benefits: it reflects important aspects of QR often overlooked by other approaches; it defuses the commonly raised objection that QR is …