MAED314

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

MICHAEL BAYER



"If we think about it, we begin to realize that there is much in our society which has been quantified - the gross national product, the DOW index, unemployment rates, the weather forecast, the smog index, the quality of a hockey player's game performance, a student's understanding of literature, and intelligence itself, with the Intelligence Quotient."



I think this is a really important statement. I believe that teachers should encourage students interest in mathematics by relating new concepts to familiar uses of those concepts, whether they be basic kinematics or statistical analysis. Every new concept should immediately have an application presented. I believe that by making mathematics more "friendly" to the general student, I will foster interest in the subject.



"Mathematics is one of the greatest cultural and intellectual achievements of humankind." - NCTM, 2000



Unfortunately the preceding statement makes mathematics seem to be out of the grasp of the general student, and implies that only the most adept student will ever progress in mathematics, which will in turn make them the elite of humankind. I feel this is a very dangerous statement to make, which may lead to students becoming discouraged in even attempting to learn the subject.



"Teaching students to identify and pose problems, to explain themselves in terms others can understand and to question the invisible structures of mathematics is key to developing informed, active and critical citizens."



I agree completely with this statement. As a mathematics teacher, I believe an interesting form of assessment would be to have students work together in groups to develop a list of questions based on the material already covered, submit this list to the teacher for approval, and in turn have the questions returned to the students in the form of a group homework assignment. Groups would work together to create questions difficult enough that other groups were unable to answer them, which in turn would foster deeper understanding from the problem posers and develop their social "professional" interactions and problem-solving skills.