Mathematics, Quantitative Literacy, Education
How can a quantitative literacy assignment be an opportunity to promote equity? This workshop, given at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s AMCOA Annual Assessment Conference on October 30, 2020, looked at this question through three lenses and provided participants with an opportunity to re-make a problematic assignment prompt.
Continue reading “Equal Signs: A Justice Agenda for Quantitative Literacy”
Why are we seemingly hard-wired to get the above problem incorrect? Two reasons. Continue reading “The MPG Illusion, Revisited”
This interactive video and set of resources was developed to support a faculty workshop offered by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education in 2019. Special thanks to Robert Awkward, DHE’s Director of Learning Outcomes Assessment, for organizing and providing financial and logistical support for these workshops; and to Mary-Ann Winkelmes, Director of Teaching and Learning at Brandeis University, for co-facilitating the workshops by engaging participants in designing transparent assignments. Continue reading “Grow Up, Branch Out: Quantitative Literacy for the 21st Century”
The only thing worse than our pervasive cultural misbeliefs about numeracy is when mathematicians give them cover.
Here’s an example, with author omitted. (These gags are ubiquitous and I’m not trying to “cancel” anyone!)
I am a trained mathematician right up until I have to calculate a restaurant tip. (In reply to the below)
I am a trained microbiogist right up until a cookie falls on the ground.
— Susanna L Harris (@SusannaLHarris) September 30, 2019
And while I know these are tongue-in-cheek funny jokes (so please don’t @ me), I have to ask: Who laughs? Who’s supposed to laugh? And what happens when they do?
Earlier this month, I did a preliminary assessment of Andrew Torrez’s speculation on the Opening Arguments podcast that the Roberts Court has ushered in a new era of polarization on the U.S. Supreme Court. The answer, looking at 20 years of history, seemed to be no. A wider view of 75 years of history, meanwhile, suggests the answer is… still no. The Roberts Court is not significantly more polarized in its merit case votes than any other Court in this history.
But, the data suggest two interesting trends in Supreme Court unanimity over the past 75 years: a steady boom-and-bust cycle about every decade, and a significant Roberts Court uptick in the second derivative suggesting that year-over-year, the consensus about consensus may be disappearing.
Continue reading “Boom, Bust, Hockey Stick: Unanimity in the U.S. Supreme Court since 1945”
On the most recent episode of Opening Arguments, the terrific legal and current affairs podcast that also happens to have excellent taste in WordPress themes, host Andrew Torrez posed an interesting statistical question (around 56:00). Are Supreme Court decisions growing increasingly polarized? Continue reading “Is Supreme Court Unanimity Vanishing?”
Continue reading “Building Quantitative Literacy Across the Curriculum (AMCOA 2019)”