| THE
FIELDS INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES |
FIELDS
MATHED FORUM MEETING AGENDA
THEME: The Value of
Including Social Justice and Sustainability Issues in a
Mathematics Curriculum
April 30, 2011, 10AM – 2PM
Fields Institute, 222 College Street, Toronto
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MORNING PROGRAM:
10:00 a.m. - 10:10 a.m. Reports: OAME, OMCA, OCMA, CMS, and other.
10:10 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. David Stocker (City View Alternative
School in Toronto)
Title: Pizza Party Math: A Critical Look at Elementary Mathematics
Resources
SHORT DESCRIPTION: 'Pizza party math' is rampant. Objects in
students' lives (pizzas, coins, Pringles cans and even snails!)
are used to 'do math upon'. This is all misleadingly called "real
life math", for it has little to do with using math to understand
the world around us. We can, however, use math to understand hunger
and homelessness, poverty and politics, distributive justice and
a host of other social justice issues. Central to this line of thinking
is that students who are engaged in the contexts that matter to
them most are more likely to learn the mathematics better.
BIO: David Stocker teaches at City View Alternative School in Toronto.
It is a grade seven and eight school dedicated to delivering the
curriculum through the lens of social justice issues. He is the
author of Maththatmatters: A teacher resource linking math and social
justice. He and his partner Kathy have three children: Jazz, Kio,
and newborn Storm.
10:45 - 11:20 a.m. Peter Crippin (University of Waterloo)
Title: As Teachers of Mathematics, How Can We Help Affect Social
Justice?
SHORT DESCRIPTION: In this talk, I will speak about David Stocker's
approach to social justice and talk about how this approach can
be seen to be part of a larger picture and how, as teachers of mathematics,
we can make things better for our students, from a social justice
perspective.
11:20 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Jessica Young (PhD Candidate, OISE/UT)
Title: Environmental Education in Secondary Schools
SHORT DESCRIPTION: I will draw upon my current doctoral research,
my Master's Thesis research, and ten years of teaching Science and
Environmental Science in Ontario to discuss environmental education
policy & practice in Ontario secondary schools, teaching environmental
sustainability and social justice issues in the secondary curricula,
and recent policy reform requiring all teachers (K-12) to teach
environmental sustainability.
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. LUNCH BREAK
(Light refreshments provided)
1:00
p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Dr. Stephen Lerman (Faculty of Arts and
Human Sciences of the London South Bank University, UK)
Title: Finding Paths to Students' Engagement and Equity in Mathematics
Education
SHORT DESCRIPTION: During this presentation, Dr. Lerman will draw
from his years of work on sociological theory trying to understand
who fails in school mathematics and why, and what teachers and policymakers
can do about it. In the UK, it is students from economically and
socially deprived areas who continue to fail, or we might say, are
failed by the ways we run schooling. In this session, Dr. Lerman
will discuss his current understanding of alternative ways to engage
students arising from a range of studies. In particular, theories
of identity, of great interest throughout the social sciences, might
help us to understand how to improve the equity of successful outcomes
in mathematics education, though he will suggest that we remain
realistic about the political context of assessment policies in
order to challenge them.
BIO: Stephen Lerman is Professor of Mathematics Education and Deputy
Director of the Centre for Research in Education at London South
Bank University, England. His research interests include sociocultural
theory, sociological perspectives of mathematics education, and
classroom studies. He was lead researcher on an ESRC funded project
to examine research publications over a 12 year period, part of
which was to identify theories of learning adopted by researchers.
He is co-researcher on an EU project called ABCMaths and on a project
funded by the Australian Research Council working with remote indigenous
schools in the north of Western Australia.
2:00 p.m. Adjournment; Sessions will continue in September 2011.
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