Transition Mathematics Project

Mike Burke, Professor of Mathematics at the College of San Mateo shared example after example of rich applications, work he developed through the Integrative Learning Project, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. In his session,"An Application-Driven Math Curriculum", Mr. Burke handed out data sets, posed questions based on the sets, and had institute participants think through and share the implications of the numbers. To date, Burke has used data sets to frame issues like gun control, the death penalty, and global warming. Mr. Burke noted that he spends more of his time talking with his class about how you interpret what you've done than about the mathematics necessary to do it.

Mr. Burke's efforts to shift his teaching of math from the more abstract toward practical thinking has taken off while working with writing teachers over these last ten years. For three years or so, he has been able to work as part of a learning community with a few other faculty and a small cohort of students.

This is how Mr. Burke describes his work and philosophy: We can begin to think about quantitative literacy by reversing the relationship between the mathematics curriculum and the applications we teach. That is, rather than selecting applications to support an unquestioned mathematics curriculum, I propose that we begin with important, compelling applications, and use these to drive the curriculum. I plan to illustrate this approach with examples, and to talk about the implications of this approach for the teaching of quantitative literacy.