A common question math teachers face is how can the concepts students learn be applied to daily life.
Dr. Carolyn Pinchback, professor of mathematics education at UCA, has found that the best way to answer that question is by showing students potential real life examples, and she has learned that integrating literature into lesson plans is the key to doing just that.
As part of her mathematics education class, Pinchback requires future teachers to go into an elementary school and present a math concept to a class through the use of literature. By relating the two, the children are able to grasp concepts in terms of things they can understand, like a story.
?Integrating literature and mathematics has been done before, but not very often. What?s uncommon is that it?s done in a mathematics content course. We?re trying to learn to integrate the curriculum. By doing this, students are able to see the connection,? she said.
Pinchback recently was honored with the North Central Arkansas Reading Council?s Educator Literacy Award for integrating literature in college math lessons and providing mini-teaching experiences for teacher candidates using literature in teaching mathematics.
Pinchback has also received support from the UCA Foundation, which has provided her with funding to purchase teaching materials and attend conferences where she has presented her work. ?Without the financial support of the UCA Foundation, I wouldn?t have been able to buy materials that we need in order to make this program work,? she said.
Students can check out books funded by the UCA Foundation to use in their field experience. Each book has a specific mathematical concept that helps show the children how mathematics and literature can be connected.
?I started off trying to get math students to see that math is all around them, which would improve their education. Going into the schools started when Kathy Sweere said I could use her fourth grade class at Ida Burns Elementary,? Pinchback said. Since then, she also has received support from schools in Conway, Greenbrier, Vilonia and Little Rock.
Pinchback is careful to work with the teachers on what is currently going on in the classroom instead of adding new material they may not have time for. ?I tell my students to use ?whatever the teacher wants,? and that?s what they do. The teacher has to agree with what concepts they want my students to cover,? she said.
The interdisciplinary approach to mathematics and literature can also be done on a secondary level. One of Pinchback?s students, Matthew Dalke, chose to use ?How Much Land Does a Man Need?? by Leo Tolstoy to illustrate advanced concepts from algebra, trigonometry and geometry. ?Integrating mathematics and literature has been done more at primary levels. Doing it at a secondary level is something that is relatively new,? he said. Dalke and Pinchback have presented the idea of integrating the subjects at a secondary level at conferences in Oklahoma and Texas.
?Using literature provides another way of learning mathematics and shows how it can be applied to real life situations. Students who may have a hard time grasping the theory behind a concept may find it easier when presented with a real life example,? Dalke said.
In the future, Pinchback wants to tighten the program by focusing on only a few books instead of the vast array she now has. She wants to organize the books and define what math concept comes out of each specific book. She also is entertaining the idea of writing a book.
-Jessica Saylor
