Critical NumeracyCritical Numeracy is the ability to make discerning decisions about everyday issues which involve mathematical concepts. In this website we use a Four Resource Critical Numeracy Model as a key lens in the design of teaching and learning activities. By making thinking visible for students they can be empowered to bring a critical numeracy lens to their own everyday reading, judgements and actions. Critical numeracy works in combination with other literacies and lenses (emotional, spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, scientific, historical, social, philosophic, environmental, and critical literacy) to help build capacities for wise citizenship.
Building critical numeracy capacity is not just about encouraging scepticism in the lone reader. We have found that key elements in developing critical numeracy are: |
Why Critical Numeracy across the curriculum?
Professor Jane Watson explains why... PDF Video "It is recommended that all systems and schools recognise that, while mathematics can be taught in the context of maths lessons, the development of numeracy requires experience in the use of mathematics beyond the mathematics classroom, and hence requires an across the curriculum commitment." The National Numeracy Review Report 2008 |
- giving students an opportunity to make sense of the mathematical concepts and make sense of the context before moving to more critical thinking about both.
- giving an opportunity for exploration with others - pairs, groups or whole class discussions where different views are juxtaposed and reconciled.
- giving an opportunity for students to create something using their new knowledge - particularly products which have an audience greater themselves, enabling feedback from a wider community.
Critical Numeracy = understanding + criticality + community + creativity
The Four Resource Model for
Critical
Numeracy
Critical Numeracy uses a similar model to the Four Resource Model of Critical Literacy (Luke and Freebody) to build students' capacities to ask questions about the meaning, validity and usefulness of texts containing mathematical concepts or information. By using a similar model to critical literacy students can recruit and build on the visible thinking strategies that they are developing whether in a literacy or numeracy context.
In the process of applying a critical numeracy lens, students go deeper into the mathematical ideas and deeper into the contexts. They challenge the usefulness of the mathematical ideas in relationship to the context. So rather than just learning the rules of maths they are encouraged to explore and question their application.
The following gives examples of the type of questions you may ask to help students become familiar with the mathematical ideas and the contexts (De-coding and Meaning-Making) before applying a more critical lens (Using and Analysing). We also give examples of how to help the students creatively use their understandings. We expand on this model in Thinking Strategies where we link to possible Thinking routines that can assist in developing student capacity in each of the quadrants.
De-coding
Be creative - collect all the terminology and categorise it into the key mathematical concepts or create a concept map |
Meaning-Making
|
Using
Be creative - Make predictions, develop a model, create your own study, write a news story, imagine scenarios, draw a Futures Wheel, or create a cartoon. Consider what data you might select or angle you might take if you were trying to persuade your audience of a particular view. |
Analysing
Be creative - Set up debates where people in your class take on different roles or perspectives. Write a letter to the editor of the news critiquing the article. |
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