Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Science and Mathematics Education Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education
Parts Of The Whole: Strategies For The Spread Of Quantitative Literacy: What Models Can Tell Us, Dorothy Wallace
Parts Of The Whole: Strategies For The Spread Of Quantitative Literacy: What Models Can Tell Us, Dorothy Wallace
Numeracy
Two conceptual frameworks, one from graph theory and one from dynamical systems, have been offered as explanations for complex phenomena in biology and also as possible models for the spread of ideas. The two models are based on different assumptions and thus predict quite different outcomes for the fate of either biological species or ideas. We argue that, depending on the culture in which they exist, one can identify which model is more likely to reflect the survival of two competing ideas. Based on this argument we suggest how two strategies for embedding and normalizing quantitative literacy in a given …
Parts Of The Whole: Only Connect, Dorothy Wallace
Parts Of The Whole: Only Connect, Dorothy Wallace
Numeracy
This is the first of several columns that will focus on the mechanisms by which new ideas become accepted by a culture, offering some familiar examples, deriving basic principles from these examples, and applying them to the problem of promoting quantitative literacy in an educational system. In this essay we describe how new concepts become embedded in a culture through their connections to existing ideas, and use this principle to suggest strategies of discourse about numeracy that promote it among various constituencies in the culture.