Anderson ConferenceDeveloping a Social Justice Work Group with

your SAC

Ann Cary and Emiliano VegaPCC Mathematics Faculty

Friday, February 1, 2013

Math and Social Justice? Two focal points:

Increasing students’ ability to think critically and understand the world around them through a mathematical study of social justice issues

Equity in the classroom and increased support and mentorship for underrepresented groups in the STEM fields

Do math and social justice even make sense together?• I thought it was just for funny jokes

and smashing symbols around. What you mean to tell me we can empower people with it to make changes?!?!?!

How the Work Group EvolvedInspiration + Frustration = Work GroupWe were inspired by what we saw at the first

Math Education and Social Justice Conference, but frustrated that the existing curriculum could not easily be adapted to fit the community college classroom

Our driving question was:“How can we incorporate these important topics into our mathematics courses in a way that is engaging, empowering and still appropriately sensitive to our diverse population?”

In the Beginning…Set up ground rules Met once a month off campusRead current resourcesCollected and discussed

data:Traffic stop data and racial pr

ofiling in PortlandCO2

data over the past centuryInternational prison dataComparing property and inco

me taxes in OR and WA

What We Investigated• Ann looked at an application involving

desegregation in Math 111 (College Algebra) and a mathematical exploration of the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill in Math 252 (Calculus II)

• Emiliano did a project in Math 105 (Math Explorations) involving gun violence

Yonkers, New YorkExponential Functions Application

• NY Times Article

• Class Activity

How did it go?They loved it! They

were excited by the fact that it was a real story and that the math we were studying was needed to really understand the fines imposed on Yonkers, NY.

Did it go anywhere? No.

Were they motivated or empowered to make changes in their community? Not directly. Exposure is a good first step though.

Deep Water Horizon Oil SpillCalculus II Project

Project Outline

How did it go this time? Students loved that the

math they were learning was relevant to what they were hearing on the news. They were challenged and intrigued by the process of finding and justifying their own data set and comparing their calculations with those of a government agency.

Did they think critically? Some students did, but not all of them. They needed more guidance regarding this.

Did it change the way they look at math? Probably.

Did it change the way they look at the world? Not likely.

Could this project be improved upon? Absolutely.

A Numerical Look at Gun Violence

Origin SetupA project inspired by Jessica

Hopson, a teacher in Portland, and a workshop of hers seen at a Math and Social Justice Conference.

The questions posed were…“How does gun violence affect children and teens?” or, “What state in the U.S. appeared to be the most violent in regards to firearm death of children and teens?”

This was a project done in a mathematics exploration class so we were able to bring math and statistics into our discussions and research.

Well, which state is it!!?

Ok, what do you say now…?

Results and ChallengesAfter being given the map each

group made their choice and supported it with two graphical pictures.

Once given the table of data, they were asked to use it to reinforce their first choice or to change and defend their new choice using topics from statistics.

Finally each group conducted a survey at PCC to gain more knowledge about what students at PCC thought of gun violence in relation to teens and children and hopefully to gain evidence that supported their view.

Issues with this project were:

Bad grammar… Not a lot of

attention to detail for graphs, etc.

Lack of interest!

Engaging With Other DisciplinesWith two or three other people, discuss the following:

Yonkers, NY Application How would you approach this problem in order to maintain

sensitivity within the classroom? Can you think of a way to incorporate more critical thinking

into this application? Try writing one “open-ended” question.Deepwater Horizon Application

How can this project be laid out so that students engage in a deeper level of critical thinking?

Gun Violence Application How would you have worked with some of these issues? How would you have brought this topic up in a way that would

garner more interest?

Social Justice and [Insert Your Discipline Here] ?

With two or three other people (from disciplines besides your own!) discuss the following:What social justice topics are relevant to your

discipline? If these are not already a part of your curriculum, how would

you incorporate them? What overlap could these topics have with mathematics?

What tips, techniques and approaches does your discipline utilize when addressing topics that are potentially volatile?

How do we take it to the next level? How do we encourage students to take their knowledge and curiosity outside the classroom?

Thanks!Ann Cary

ann.cary@pcc.edu

Emiliano Vegaemiliano.vega@pcc.edu

This presentation and a list of resources and references is available at:

http://spot.pcc.edu/~acary/andconf.html