Inquiry Stance: What happens when I center identity in a mathematics classroom?
Click here to read my master's thesis in its entirety as a continuous word document: "Bowties and Durags: Equitable Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Learning, and Collaborative Teaching."
Browse the current page, follow the subsequent hyperlinks and use the next page buttons to experience the inquiry project in a non-linear, interactive way.
Browse the current page, follow the subsequent hyperlinks and use the next page buttons to experience the inquiry project in a non-linear, interactive way.
Introduction: The Story of my wonderings
Click on the picture or button below to launch the story behind my inquiry stance for my Statistics course, MATH 413.
(Math 413) Statistics: What we did
Click on the photo above to survey the approaches Seth and I took in our statistics class and see some artifacts of our work with students.
Findings and conclusion
Thus, Robert, especially, represents the successes that we found as a classroom community engaging everyone and maximizing student buy-in. First and foremost, Robert and I eventually built a relationship filled with many signs of a healthy, cordial rapport: fist bumps, gym conversations, banter, and sharing stories of our pasts (personal communication, 2019). Moreover, Robert finished the semester by completing one of the most impressive final projects of the cohort, applying a critical lens to a personal interest of his: soccer. In fact, his quantitative analysis, actually, went beyond the scope of the material that we covered in class. In addition to quality statistics, his discussion of the topic attempted to make sense of the xenophobia and racism apparent in particular countries and the impact of foreign born soccer players on a soccer team’s success and revenue (student work, 2018). It was gratifying to see him get excited about his work in the class and to see the way that he had developed a social justice lens that led him to new inquiries discoveries that intrigued him. I am still so proud of him.
He reflected on his experience by saying, “…two weeks in I realized I was like I might as well just get the most out of a class I’m already taking. If I’m just going to be mad and annoyed the whole time its not going to be worth it at all. I was like I’m just going to embrace this, and I’m glad I did. If I didn’t it would have been bad. It wouldn’t have been fun” (student interviews, 2019). Finding a new appreciation for the uniqueness of the course within the context of his math education, he asserts that “I had never done that before. I could have taken like number theory or something like more advanced and like I would have probably excelled like quite a bit, but I took stats and then it was different and it was honestly probably better for me than taking something harder” (Excerpt from Master's Thesis).
**Read the findings from my inquiry stance, the story of the semester, by clicking on the image below: a slide from a students' final project presentation.***
**Read the findings from my inquiry stance, the story of the semester, by clicking on the image below: a slide from a students' final project presentation.***
