Activity1

When do people use (or need) mathematical thinking?

(A rapid Project-Based Learning activity)

Preamble: The course does not impose a definition of "mathematical thinking," but we fill it in through our activities and CEs.

Goals: Gets us going on the goal of CE1, which is "to identify a range of ways in which changes in work, technology, commerce, and social life have changed our needs and capacities for mathematical thinking, find patterns in them, and consider implications for education, including lifelong learning."

In the main part of this activity, each of us uses the internet to search for two kinds of presentations, relating to
a) claims that what students and/or workers need to know about mathematics is different from what it was a generation (or two) ago (depending on what kind of student and/or worker one is thinking of); and
b) claims that students and/or workers have been diverted from getting to know what they learned a generation (or two) ago.

Feel free to focus on whatever strikes you as mathematics, whether it is doing mental arithmetic when seeing if you have enough money in your checking account to cover a check you want to write to visualizing how no light can escape from a black hole.

Submit these using this form. (No limit to the number of entries you submit.) (40 minutes)

I the next part of the activity we look for patterns—either commonalities or key contrasts—across the entries concerning the claims that you assemble. Post these to the blog. (15 minutes)

The final part of the activity is to do a go around on what struck you about the claims, commonalities, or contrasts. (15 minutes)

Plus-delta feedback on activity