Bringing Critical Mathematics Education and Actor-Network Theory to a Statistics Course in Mathematics Teacher Education: Actants for Articulating Complexity in Student Teachers' Foregrounds (original) (raw)

Mathematical Power: Exploring Critical Pedagogy in Mathematics and Statistics

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2007

Though traditionally viewed as value-free, mathematics is actually one of the most powerful, yet underutilized, venues for working towards the goals of critical pedagogy—social, political and economic justice for all. This emerging awareness is due to how critical mathematics educators such as Frankenstein, Skovsmose and Gutstein have applied the work of Freire. Freire’s argument that critical education involves problem posing that challenges all to reconsider and recreate prior knowledge reads like a progressive definition of mathematical thinking. Frankenstein (1990) supports the idea that critical mathematics should involve the ability to ask basic statistical questions in order to deepen one’s appreciation of particular issues and should not be taught as isolated formulas with little relevance to individual experiences.

TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR A CRITICAL STATISTICAL LITERACY IN HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS

In the spirit of questioning, crossing, and blurring disciplinary borders with(in) mathematics education, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that merges conceptions of critical literacy and statistical literacy for high school mathematics curriculum. I begin by discussing the political nature of education and then situate this work within the goals of education for active citizenship. Next, I provide a detailed background of both critical and statistical literacy from multiple educational research perspectives. Lastly, by synthesizing notions of critical and statistical literacy, I present a theoretical framework for a critical statistical literacy in the context of high school mathematics curriculum.

FOREGROUNDING SOCIOPOLITICAL AWARENESS AND CRITIQUE IN SECONDARY SCHOOL STATISTICS CURRICULUM

With large scale social issues such as human migration, climate change, and growing economic disparities, statistical literacy needs to go beyond consuming and producing data that merely incorporates real-world contexts, but that critiques the structures and discourses that are shaping and perpetuating inequitable social, and economic conditions. The goal of this work is to theorize the importance of fostering sociopolitical awareness and critique in conjunction with learning powerful statistical concepts and practice, fostering a critical statistical literacy in secondary mathematics classrooms. In taking an initial step towards this goal I will be discussing the results of an analysis of an American written curriculum series for secondary mathematics, looking at the contexts and the elements of a critical statistical literacy present in those lessons.

Becoming critical mathematics pedagogues: A journey

2008

This session will report the findings of a study that explored the beginning transformations in the pedagogical philosophies and practices of three mathematics teachers (middle, high school, and 2-year college) who completed a graduate-level mathematics education course that focused on critical theory and teaching for social justice, and how these transformations are compatible (or not) with reform mathematics education as suggested by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and in turn, the ...

Chapter 6: “I Have Gotten Braver”: Growing and Sustaining Critical Mathematics Pedagogies through a Teacher Community of Praxis

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

Background Mathematics education is not often identified as the locus of radical social change work, with these topics assumed instead as fodder for social studies or language arts lessons. As such, teachers of mathematics can struggle to find avenues for their commitments to social and educational justice in their mathematics teaching spaces. Purpose This study examined the practice and experiences of 10 math educators participating in a voluntary teacher learning community focused on critical pedagogies and math. The purpose was to identify the core learnings and challenges made possible through this learning community. Setting and Participants The Critical Mathematics Teacher Collaborative (CMTC) consists primarily of preservice and early career K–12 teachers, all of whom teach math and seek to develop their own math teaching practices through frameworks of critical pedagogy and social justice. An informal, nonhierarchical learning community, CMTC uses a cycle of critical reflect...

Critical Mathematics Pedagogy: Transforming Teachers' Practices

This study reports the effects of a graduate-level mathematics education course that focused on critical theory and teaching for social justice on the pedagogical philosophies and practices of three mathematics teachers (middle, high school, and 2-year college). The study employed Freirian participatory research methodology; in fact, the participants were not only co- researchers, but also co-authors of the study. Data

Critical Mathematics Pedagogy: Transforming Teachers’ Practices [Proceedings]

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference: Mathematics Education in a Global Community, 2007

CITATION: Stinson, D. W., Bidwell, C. R., Jett, C. C., Powell, G. C., & Thurman, M. M. (2007). Critical mathematics pedagogy: Transforming teachers’ practices. In D. K. Pugalee, A. Rogerson, & A. Schinck (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Conference: Mathematics Education in a Global Community (619–624). Charlotte, NC: Mathematics Education into the 21st Century. For an expanded unpublished manuscript see: Stinson, D. W., Bidwell, C. R., Powell, G. C., & Thurman, M. M. (2007). Becoming critical mathematics pedagogues: Three teachers’ beginning journey. Unpublished manuscript, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. This study reports the effects of a graduate-level mathematics education course that focused on critical theory and teaching for social justice on the pedagogical philosophies and practices of three mathematics teachers (middle, high school, and 2-year college). The study employed Freirian participatory research methodology; in fact, the participants were not only co-researchers, but also co-authors of the study. Data collection included reflective essays, journals, and “storytelling”; data analysis was a combination of textual analysis and autoethnography. The findings report that the teachers believed that the course provided not only a new language but also a legitimization to transform their pedagogical philosophies and practices (and research agendas) away from the “traditional” and toward a mathematics for social justice.

Becoming Critical Mathematics Pedagogues: Three Teachers’ Beginning Journey [Unpublished Manuscript]

Unpublished manuscript, 2007

CITATION: Stinson, D. W., Bidwell, C. R., Powell, G. C., & Thurman, M. M. (2007). Becoming critical mathematics pedagogues: Three teachers’ beginning journey. Unpublished manuscript, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. Manuscript presented (summer 2008) at the annual International Conference of Teacher Education and Social Justice, Chicago, IL. Condensed manuscript published: Stinson, D. W., Bidwell, C. R., & Powell, G. C. (2012). Critical pedagogy and teaching mathematics for social justice. The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 4(1), 76–94. ABSTRACT: In this study, the authors report the transformations in the pedagogical philosophies and practices of three mathematics teachers (middle, high school, and 2-year college) who completed a graduate-level mathematics education course that focused on critical theory and teaching for social justice. The study employed Freirian participatory research methodology; in fact, the participants were not only co-researchers but also co authors of the study. Data collection included reflec-tive essays, journals, and “storytelling”; data analysis was a combination of textual analysis and autoethnography. The findings report that the teachers believed that the course provided not only a new language but also a legitimization to transform their pedagogical philosophies and practices away from the “traditional” and toward a mathematics for social justice.

Promoting Critical Citizenship in Professional Development of Mathematics Teachers via Statistical Investigations

Bridging the Gap: Empowering and Educating Today’s Learners in Statistics. Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics

This proposal studies statistical investigations as tools to promote statistical thinking and critical citizenship in the process of professional development for mathematics teachers. A qualitative methodology with a critical dialectical approach was followed. The information was produced within a professional development for in-service teachers from a public school in the northwest of Colombia. A statistical investigation that addressed CO2 emissions was implemented, and teachers of different teaching levels explored real data from the World Bank by using CODAP software. The units of analysis were the interactions of the teachers with their colleagues during the professional development. The main results exhibit evidence of statistical thinking and critical citizenship in mathematics teachers during the course of the empirical inquiry.

Educating critical mathematics educators: Challenges for teacher educators

Critical Mathematics Education: Past, Present and Future, 2010

Ole Skovsmose's work, particularly Towards a Philosophy o/Critical Mathematics Education, presents challenges for me as an adult numeracy teacher educator. I work in the field of aduJt education at a university in Australia. Increasingly the fieldincluding aduJl numeracy-has been facing a narrowing from a broad socially and personally beneficial education and training agenda to one that focuses only on human capital outcomes (Shore & Se-arle, 2008; McHugh, 2007). There is now less valuing of the kinds of education that are linked to increasing identity capital and social capital (Schuller, 2004). In such a climate the prospect of adult numeracy teachers teaching critical mathematics is slim, if we understand critical mathematics education to entail crilical insights about and action upon the structural impediments to social justice. What counts' in adult education has shi.fted, and this jn tum is redefining what it means to be a teacher of adults. As a t.eacher educator,