Other Mathematics Commons^™

Educating Consumers And Producers Of Data: Review Of Making Sense Of Numbers By Jane E. Miller (2022), Andrew J. Miller

Numeracy

Author Jane E. Miller has brought her considerable experience writing and teaching about numerate communication to a new textbook, Making Sense of Numbers. Miller uses clear prose, timely and authentic examples, and thought-provoking exercises to educate the next generation of consumers and producers of data, students in introductory quantitative reasoning, research methods, or data analysis courses. While the textbook does not fit the mold of a "typical" quantitative literacy course, creative instructors may find ways to use it in innovative quantitative literacy, data literacy, or introductory data science courses.

An Astronomer’S Journey Into Quantitative Reasoning, Jeffrey Bennett

Numeracy

The University of Colorado Boulder campus introduced what may have been the world’s first quantitative reasoning (QR) requirement in 1984 and started offering a QR course in 1988. Although I am an astronomer by training, I had the privilege of creating and teaching that course, which led to my co-authorship of the first textbook directed specifically at QR courses. In this “Roots and Seeds” piece, I will discuss how this course and textbook came to be, how I as an astronomer ended up involved in it, and how this work has connected with other aspects of my career.

Review Of Social Workers Count: Numbers And Social Issues By Michael Anthony Lewis, Michael T. Catalano

Numeracy

Lewis, Michael Anthony. 2017. Social Workers Count: Numbers and Social Issues. 2019. New York: Oxford University Press. 223 pp. ISBN 978-019046713-5

The numeracy movement, although largely birthed within the mathematics community, is an outside-the-box endeavor which has always sought to break down or at least transgress traditional disciplinary boundaries. Michael Anthony Lewis’s book is a testament that this effort is succeeding. Lewis is a social worker and sociologist with an impressive resume, author of Economics for Social Workers, co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee, and member of the faculty at the Silberman School …

Development And Assessment Of A Continuing Education Unit In Quantitative Literacy For High School Stem Teachers, Craig P. Mcclure

Numeracy

Influencing the teaching of quantitative literacy at all levels of education can be difficult due to the many demands placed on educators. In a continuing education course, public high school science teachers participated in a pilot study of a program on quantitative literacy, involving defining quantitative literacy, how it is beneficial to students, examples of quantitative literacy education, and how it may be supported in the science classroom. Surveys administered before and after the unit indicate an improvement in the teachers’ understanding of quantitative literacy, and a follow-up survey indicates that the unit impacted classroom practice. Results support the conclusion …

Art, Artfulness, Or Artifice?: A Review Of The Art Of Statistics: How To Learn From Data, By David Spiegelhalter, Jason Makansi

Numeracy

David Spiegelhalter. 2019. The Art of Statistics: How to Learn From Data. (London: The Penguin Group). 444 pp. ISBN 978-1541618510

The author successfully eases the reader away from the rigor of statistical methods and calculations and into the realm of statistical thinking. Despite an engaging style and attention-grabbing examples, the reader of The Art of Statistics will need more than a casual grounding in statistics to get what Spiegelhalter, I believe, intends from his book. It should be viewed as a companion to a more rigorous textbook on statistical methods but not necessarily a book that makes statistics any …

Are We At A Watershed Moment For The Quantitative Literacy Movement?: Review Of Shifting Context, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy In Higher Education, By Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, And Victor Piercey, Eds., Maura Mast

Numeracy

Luke Tunstall, Gizem Karaali, and Victor Piercey, eds. 2019. Shifting Concepts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education. Math Notes 88. (Mathematics Association of America, MAA Press). Print ISBN 978-0-88385-198-2. Electronic ISBN 978-1-61444-324-7.

The thematic approach of the edited MAA Notes volume Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education is that the “construct” of quantitative literacy is now fairly stable, but the contexts in which quantitative literacy is taught (and practiced) continue to change. Several chapters give the reader much to consider regarding what constitutes the foundation of this stable core and, relatedly, how quantitative …

Taking Multiple Regression Analysis To Task: A Review Of Mindware: Tools For Smart Thinking, By Richard Nisbett (2015), Jason Makansi

Numeracy

Richard Nisbett. 2015. Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking.(New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux). 336 pp. ISBN: 9780374536244

Nisbett, a psychologist, may not achieve his stated goal of teaching readers to “effortlessly” extend their common sense when it comes to quantitative analysis applied to everyday issues, but his critique of multiple regression analysis (MRA) in the middle chapters of Mindware is worth attention from, and contemplation by, the QL/QR and Numeracy community. While in at least one other source, Nisbett’s critique has been called a “crusade” against MRA, what he really advocates is that it not be used as …

Quantitative Literacy And The Mathematical Association Of America In The 2000’S: Ql Subcommittee Of Cupm , Sigmaa Ql, And Maa Notes #70, Rick Gillman

Numeracy

This Roots and Seeds article is a partial history of the quantitative literacy movement in the Mathematical Association of America in the first decade of the 21st century. It focuses on the inclusion of QL in the MAA Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics’ CUPM Curriculum Guidelines (2004), the creation of the special interest group for MAA members (SIGMAA QL, 2004), and the work of that body in subsequent years, in particular, the MAA Notes #70, Current Practices in Quantitative Literacy (2006). I discuss some issues that were problematic in the QL movement in the MAA in those years …

The Ultimatum Game: An Introduction To Quantitative Literacy In A Social Justice Context, Robert G. Root

Numeracy

The Ultimatum Game is a two-person, multiple-strategy game widely used in the experimental social sciences to demonstrate the human propensity for costly punishment in response to inequitable treatment. The game serves to provide quantitative evidence for a diversity of fairness norms across cultures. The play of the game and its interpretation offer nuanced views of the nature and importance of quantitative literacy. Its use in a writing seminar connecting quantitative literacy and social justice is described.

Quantitative Literacy And Civic Virtue, William Briggs

Numeracy

Mathematics educators are occasionally called upon to justify the existence or the offering of quantitative literacy courses. This paper argues that effective quantitative literacy courses have different goals than algebra courses and are legitimate alternatives to algebra courses for non-STEM students. Furthermore, quantitative literacy courses affirm the historic relationship between citizenship and education. In today’s world of proliferating news sources, social media, and fake news, quantitative literacy has become an essential component of the long-held ideal of civic virtue.

Review Of Painting By Numbers By Jason Makansi, Thomas J. Pfaff

Numeracy

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

In Painting by Numbers Jason Makansi adds another book to the quantitative literacy bookshelf, with a book focusing on models. The book offers twelve commandments to aid the reader in assess quantitative models. The second section of the book offers examples to apply the models. Increasing quantitative literacy is crucial and generally, the more books the better. Unfortunately, this book is too superficial, often misses key ideas, and can easily lead a person …

Life, The Universe, And Numeracy: Review Of A Numerate Life By John Allen Paulos (2015), Kira H. Hamman

Numeracy

John Allen Paulos. 2015. A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books) 200 pp. ISBN: 978-1633881181

John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy and many other books addressing quantitative literacy and numeracy in society, tackles autobiography in this quirky "anti-memoir."

Math Course For Liberal Arts Majors: A Pilot With Embedded Remediation, Eileen B. Perez, Hansun To, Mary Fowler, Linda Larrivee

Numeracy

This study was designed to determine if embedded remediation is significant in accelerating the pathway to completion of a college-level math course for students needing remediation. The project studied the impact on student success in a quantitative literacy course at a Massachusetts four-year state university with remedial material embedded. The course satisfies the university’s general education math requirement for students with liberal arts majors who are not required to complete college algebra or calculus-based courses. The paper begins with a presentation of the issues with remedial mathematics and its impact on students’ graduation and persistence. Next, the paper covers the …

Quantitative Literacy In The Affective Domain: Computational Geology Students’ Reactions To Devlin’S The Math Instinct, Victor J. Ricchezza, H. L. Vacher

Numeracy

Building on suggestions from alumni from a recent interview project, students in Computational Geology at the University of South Florida were tasked with reading a popular non-fiction book on mathematics and writing about the book and their feelings about math. The book, The Math Instinct by Keith Devlin, was chosen because we believed it would give the students something interesting to write about and not because we had any expectations in particular about what it might reveal about or do for their math anxiety. The nature of the responses received from the students led to the performance of a post-hoc …

Figures And First Years: An Analysis Of Calculus Students' Use Of Figures In Technical Reports, Nathan J. Antonacci, Michael Rogers, Thomas J. Pfaff, Jason G. Hamilton

Numeracy

This three-year study focused on first-year Calculus I students and their abilities to incorporate figures in technical reports. In each year, these calculus students wrote a technical report as part of the Polar Bear Module, an educational unit developed for use in partner courses in biology, computer science, mathematics, and physics as part of the Multidisciplinary Sustainability Education (MSE) project at Ithaca College. In the first year of the project, students received basic technical report guidelines. In year two, the report guidelines changed to include explicit language on how to incorporate figures. In year three, a grading rubric was added …

A Madison-Numeracy Citation Index (2008-2015): Implementing A Vision For A Quantitatively Literate World, Nathan D. Grawe, H. L. Vacher

Numeracy

This editorial recognizes the contributions made by Bernard Madison to the field of quantitative literacy with a bibliographic index of his papers, edited volumes, and works contained therein that were cited in the first eight volumes (2008-2015) of Numeracy. In total, 61 citing papers ("sources") cite 42 Madison works ("citations") a total of 218 times. The source and citation indexes provided in the appendix at the end of this editorial make it easy to see the direct contribution of Madison's work to the arguments and debates contained in the founding years of the journal. For those who are new …

Review Of The Joy Of X: A Guided Tour Of Math, From One To Infinity By Steven Strogatz, Michael T. Catalano

Numeracy

Strogatz, Steven. The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity, (New York, NY, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). 316 pp. ISBN 978-0-547-51765-0

The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity, by Steven Strogatz, is an engaging and example-filled argument for mathematics as a valuable and enjoyable activity. The thirty chapters are divided into six parts, entitled Numbers, Relationships, Shapes, Change, Data, and Frontiers. The discussion ranges from intuitive explanations of basic concepts such as place value, the four arithmetic operations, percentage increase and decrease, and solving equations, to “higher” levels …

A Sampling Of Popular Books For Numeracy Readers, Michael T. Catalano

Numeracy

Popular books on quantitative themes are seemingly more available than ever. In this book review, we look at five such books from a wide range of authors. Although the books are written for diverse audiences, all provide examples and discussion of concepts that could be used in courses with quantitative literacy objectives. The books are Guesstimation and Guesstimation 2.0 by Lawrence Weinstein and John A. Adam, and Weinstein, respectively; Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving, by Jonathan G. Koomey; How to Measure Anything: Finding The Value of “Intangibles” in Business, by Douglas W. Hubbard; and …

The Scope Of Numeracy After Five Years, H. L. Vacher, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The purpose of this editorial is to provide an efficient way for readers and potential authors to see (a) what type of papers are published in this journal and (b) what subjects are appropriate. The editorial consists mainly of about a dozen pages of tables including live links to the papers’ access/abstract pages to facilitate easy browsing. In the first table, the 85 papers that have been published in the journal’s first five years are classified into: review papers; research papers; case studies; essays; book reviews; columns; and editorials about the journal. In the second table, the papers are inventoried …