Indigenous students in Australia typically lag two years behind other kids in math: a disappointing statistic by any measure. Dr Chris Matthews of Griffith University has come up with a new approach that shows great promise for connecting indigenous kids with mathematics.
Going further, I believe that this new method would help any kids of a non-mainstream background to understand math. Watch the video for more:
The approach recommended by Dr Matthews is explained by Prof Tom Cooper of the YuMi Deadly Centre at QUT, using the acronym RAMR:
- Reality: connect first of all with students’ existing culture and interests. In the case of indigenous kids, this includes story telling and dance
- Abstraction: come up with ways to turn stories and concerns into mathematical problems, equations and so on
- Mathematics: invent mathematics in standard symbolic format to capture the original question or scenario
- Reflect: consider the result and match the mathematical results with the original source situation and consider how well the mathematics enabled the solution for the problem, or explained a story in mathematical terms
[Click the link below to watch Prof Cooper’s explanation]
But a teacher who teaches students of non-indigenous but also non-mainstream backgrounds could adopt the same basic pedagogy, starting with those students stories, culture and questions that interest them.
Mathematics has sadly often been presented as the product of a lot of “old white males”, which for some students immediately puts them offside and makes math irrelevant and boring, in those students’ minds. This approach deals with this problem by starting with examples from the students’ own culture and background.
What do you think?
How should we teach math to students from backgrounds other than our own? Share a comment below.
Reference Articles
- Main article (ABC Australia): Maths, story and dance: an Indigenous approach to teaching
- YuMi Deadly Centre, Queensland University of Technology
- YouTube video: Professor Tom Cooper – YuMi Deadly Maths
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