I am constantly working on incorporating social justice into lessons and units. Naturally, these ideas fit well with the humanities like reading and social studies. However, I struggle to provide this type of context in math class. I am constantly thinking - can I teach students to be global citizens in math lessons? Besides the obvious - teaching kids kindness and empathy while building a positive classroom community, how can you incorporate global issues into math class? So after scouring the internet to find elementary appropriate math problems with a social justice or global issues content theme and finding nothing, I decided to turn to my students. I posed this question to my third grade enrichment group. These students are above level in math to begin with and eager to put of their mathematical thinking caps. I asked them, "What global issues can human beings solve with math? In small groups, they discussed their ideas and without too much prompting from me, they were able to create the posters pictured below. Now I have mathematicians thinking about global issues in my classroom. I hope to create more lessons with this in mind, but for now this was a great start! Anyone have any ideas to share? How do you encourage global thinking in math class?
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Ms. StargardterI am a gifted and talented teacher. Listen to my thoughts on social justice, global citizenship, gifted education, and diverse books. I'd love to hear yours as well! Archives
December 2018
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