Students Learn Math While Tackling a Community Problem
One of the most dreaded questions any math teacher faces from their students is “When will I ever have to use this?” Isabel Peña – an educator at Columbus City Schools – used the Korda Institute’s methodology to come up with her own answer. She found a community partner who provided the students with an authentic challenge that required them to gather and analyze data and then present their findings back to the organization. By applying math to solve a real and urgent community problem, students saw how the skills they were learning were relevant far beyond their classroom walls. Watch below to hear Isabel describe the deep learning her students experienced.
“They got to do a lot of statistics and reading data and in a normal school year that’s the unit that nobody ever gets to, and it’s the unit that’s so important for the real world.”
– Isabel Peña, Math Teacher at Columbus City Schools
