Explain how Maths is Useful: 3.5
Supporting materials
- Related Progression Points
- Developmental Overview of Working Mathematically (PDF - 31Kb)
- Strategies to approach mathematical problems (PDF - 30Kb)
Indicator of Progress
Success depends on students forming a broad view of the usefulness of mathematics. It is concerned with appreciating the role of mathematics in society. For many students, this is a key to developing a positive attitude about it.
Many students are quite unaware of the dominant role of mathematics in the real world outside school. Despite their frequent use of mathematics, many adults have little realisation of the extent of their dependence on this discipline, often in simple ways. Such activities as reading numbers, reading a clock, understanding the passage of time and estimating distances are frequent and ‘taken for granted’ parts of our lives, so people sometimes fail to recognise them as mathematics.
Illustration 1: Shopping and shop keeping
Many pupils are familiar with the consumer’s role in shopping, at least in simple cases, but they often have no realisation of the overwhelming use of mathematics in all aspects of running the business. Tasks such as balancing the books at the end of each day, banking, paying employees, ordering books, establishing prices, figuring profits, and so on, use mathematics in substantial ways. Book-keeping and accounting, with consequent use of spreadsheets and graphs, are samples of mathematical activities related to the running of most businesses.
Illustration 2: Sports and recreation
Mathematics pervades all sporting activities, from scoring and statistics to catering and ground management. Indeed all recreations use some mathematics: consider the costs of pet ownership, the use of time and money in travel, and the measurement and other skills needed to pursue a craft. Even gambling is subject to mathematical laws of chance, making it extremely likely that the casino is a profitable business.
Illustration 3: Manufacturing
Mathematics is a dominant skill in all trades, from measuring and costing to job planning. Some areas, such as electrical trades, make constant use of important formulas. Every road, bridge, building, car park and car is designed with detailed planning and drawing of plans to scale.
Teaching Strategies
In order to clearly establish the value of mathematics in students’ minds, it is necessary that they do some research. This might be best spread over some months, systematically covering a variety of the uses of mathematics in the world around.
As examples are found, classify them. For example use the VELS dimensions: Number, Space, Measurement, chance & data, Structure (use of formulas, technology etc.) and Working mathematically (particularly the way mathematics is used as a tool to solve real problems). It is important to relate the world’s mathematics to the mathematics found in school, as too often they seem different.
There are several ways to gather this information.
Activity 1: Use parents
Activity 2: Community links
Activity 3: Use an excursion
Activity 4: Use the media
Activity 5: Communicate and celebrate..
Activity 1: Use parents
In most schools, the most useful way is to call upon the assistance of the parents of the students. Most parents are engaged in activities with a lot of mathematics involved, even if they do not realise it. Farming is an example in which time, areas, volumes, and of course chance (for the rain) are significant.
Don’t forget the home-keepers. Ask parents to consider the mathematics of running a home efficiently, such as banking, budgeting, cleaning, cooking, home improvements, installation of a water tank, choices like buying cars, insurance etc. Dockets often include masses (2.45 kg apples), prices per kg ($4.95 per kg) and the cost to be paid ($12.13 with rounding from the multiplication of decimals, and later to nearest 5c). Bills for gas, electricity, water also provide useful teaching resource.
One of the outcomes of such work with parents will be a more enthusiastic interest in the development of their own students’ numeracy skills, which can only help.
Activity 2: Community links
Sometimes it is possible to bring a member of the community into the classroom to discuss how they use mathematics. A shopkeeper who can bring examples of dockets and receipts from a checkout register, has in these everyday examples a vast amount of evidence of mathematics at work. There may be other teachers who can share interesting real-life mathematical experiences with your class. Of course if you have such experiences (from travel, non-teaching employment etc.) make the most of them.
Activity 3: Use an excursion
An excursion may be an ideal way of seeing mathematics in the real world. You might go to a zoo or wildlife park, to a supermarket or a train station. If a house or a school is being built nearby, there is so much mathematics to see and learn. Even looking at the shapes on the roofs of houses can be rewarding: you will see isosceles triangles, trapeziums, rectangles, parallelograms, etc. Be sure to look beyond simple arithmetic and prices.
Activity 4: Use the media
The internet is a valuable source of information.
Look at newspapers and magazines, searching for numerical information, graphs, shapes, statistics, etc.
Recognise that mathematics is used everywhere.
Numeracy in the News – This website illustrates how newspaper articles can be used to promote close links between numeracy and literacy in the classroom.
Activity 5: Communicate and celebrate
The next thing is to try to make the findings into some coherent presentation that will inspire not only your students but also the rest of the school and the community. (Do a good job and tell the local press about it.) Some students will want to make a video, DVD, PowerPoint presentation or other more conventional forms.
Celebrate the power and usefulness of mathematics and encourage others to join you.