STEPWISE+Math

= STEPWISE Mathematics Education =

We are interested in how STEPWISE can be applied to Mathematics Education.

General Principles of STEPWISE

- Brainstorm many WISE issues related to topics and/or peoples' lives (for Math Ed., these would be quantitative STSE relationships) - Students do primary (experiments and studies) and secondary research (e.g., web searches) about the issues - Products (in Math, these would standard solutions?) are taught within the context of WISE issues - Skills (in Math, these would be standard operations?) are taught within the context of WISE issues - Brainstorm forms of activism that apply to the issues - Students take action(s) to address WISE issues

Some general ideas are:

1. have students do correlational studies that generate data that suggest WISE issues; and, then, have them design and carry out action(s) to address them

Here are some variables from which students might conduct studies: (or whatever you want to call these)** || **Result Variables (or whatever you want to call these)** ||
 * **Cause Variables
 * * Gender
 * Age
 * Grade || * water bottle use
 * snack food choices
 * sugar intake
 * trans-fat intake ||

2. have students brainstorm problems with everyday things; then, design and test inventions that might be a better way of doing things


 * **Possible Invention** || **Negative Results/Conditions** ||
 * * Binders made with recycled materials
 * Better pen?
 * Coating on bicycle stands
 * can crushing device || * School binders fall apart easily
 * Pens leak ink
 * Bicycle stands rust
 * Garbage is not sorted ||

We can try to develop some examples for these and start building lesson plans and student activities.

Some resources to support WISE Math: http://www.radicalmath.org/ http://www.wfu.edu/~mccoy/socialjustice/sjlpm.pdf http://www.dothemath.thestop.org/ [This gets students to consider costs of essentials for living, compare that to what people get for social assistance, and possibly take actions to reduce poverty in Ontario and elsewhere]

Chance in the News: a website about current events linked to probability and statistics. It is mostly for high school and university students but there are some issues suitable for middle school students.

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