Developing Mathematical Aptitude Through Significant Cultural Contexts

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Thurseday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: How culture impacts early grades math teaching and learning

Proposal

Mathematics has always been more than classroom lectures and exams but unfortunately, textbooks have solitarily been used as a means to support and enhance teaching in mathematics at all levels of schooling for many years. Although the content is presented in a sequenced, coherent and logical way, the problems discussed in the classroom through textbooks are many times irrelevant and often distant from the real lives of students. What we need are primary/supplementary resources which would stimulate curiosity and motivation; and guide learner to critically analyze the problem, energetically absorb, remember, and collaborate on their own.
One rich resource that holds a significant amount of mathematical ideas and meaningful cultural relevance are the historical monuments that are left for us by our ancestors. Through the ages, the historical monuments have been a means of visual expression used to convey a wide spectrum of tangible and intangible ideas. They can often transcend languages and have the ability to take the spectator at different times and into different worlds. By integrating mathematics with such cultural context into formal teaching and learning through employing a thematic approach, we can provide learners with a strong perspective towards the mathematical concept in focus and we can equip students with right amount engagement to develop high order thinking, challenge the intellectual capacity, scaffold instructions, foster creativity, and historical empathy, and deepen their understanding of their own and others’ human experience. In fact, according to Gay (2010, p. 164) the academic success is improved by accepting the fact that mathematical and scientific knowledge is present in all cultural groups, extracting math and science knowledge and skills embedded in the everyday activities and cultural heritages of different ethnic groups ... and connecting school mathematics with the funds of knowledge present in such different existing cultural heritage.
This paper aims to create engaging and a constructivist learning environment by providing culturally relevant context in classrooms, specifically discussing how the Konark Sun Temple, which has been identified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, can be inculcated into a thematic approach to discuss multiple mathematical ideas and concepts related to the school curriculum at various levels. This paper highlights how mere tapping in the potential of such architectural marvel helped illustrate three crucial concepts in mathematics which were mapped with the wheels of the Sun Temple. Imagine how much understanding of astronomy, geometry, architecture, material, construction and aesthetics along with time coordination would have happened between astronomers, engineers, sculptors to create something like this 750 year ago providing us an untapped pool of knowledge to explore and dive into. This paper provides a framework and an example of how a culturally significant and historical monument can be used as a pedagogical tool and proves to be a source of motivation and engagement.

Author

• Akash Kumar Saini, UNESCO MGIEP