Mathematics in the Franciscan Tradition

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Mathematics in the Franciscan Tradition

• Integrating Faith and Values into the Teaching of
  Mathematics
• Sr. Barbara Reynolds, sds
• Cardinal Stritch University

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Franciscan Values at Cardinal Stritch Univ.

• Creating a Caring Community
• Reverencing All of Creation
• Showing Compassion
• Making Peace

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Toward a Franciscan core

• Infuse Franciscan heritage explicitly into
  undergraduate experience - both in out of class
• New requirement starting 2006-07
• Students to take one course per year that is
  Franciscan infused

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Franciscan-Infused coursesthe requirement

• First-Year Experience (Freshman Seminar)
• Franciscan-infused course 1
• Franciscan-infused course 2
• Examples religious studies, philosophy,
  literature, theater, , biology,
• Why not mathematics?
• Franciscan Keystone Experience

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Franciscan-Infused coursesapproval process

• Each course approved separately
• Objective criteria
• apparent to an outsider
• Evidence of Franciscan infusion must be given in
  the syllabus
• Franciscan infusion must be included in the
  assessment (i.e., the grade)
• apparent to the students

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How I began

• In spring 2003, I was supported by a grant from
  Teagle Foundation.
• Develop statement for course syllabi
• Develop Franciscan assignments
• Make it count (i.e., in the course grade)

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Developed statement for course syllabi

• Franciscan Intellectual Tradition
• Increase awareness
• Our own awareness as well at that of the students
• Sell the concept to students

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Statement on all my syllabiincludes

• Stritch is Catholic, Franciscan university
• Founded by Congregation of Sisters of St. Francis
  of Assisi
• Neither St. Francis nor St. Clare taught
  mathematics (or any subject!) in schools
• Their lives offer models for cooperation, respect
  for diversity, and reverence for creation that we
  strive to reflect throughout the Stritch community

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Expression of Franciscan Values in my classroom

• Creating caring community through cooperative
  learning
• Exercising responsible stewardship of resources
• Setting context for problem-solving
• Thinking critically
• Appreciating beauty inherent in mathematics

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Cooperative Learning

• Building a caring community within the classroom
• Students expected to show respect, courtesy,
  compassion to each other
• Instructor committed to fostering a safe,
  comfortable environment for intellectual argument
• Opportunities to learn / practice conflict
  resolution

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Responsible Stewardship

• Take care of this place
• Our classroom and computer labs
• Take care of each other
• With gentle reminders as needed

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Thinking Critically

• Critical thinking skills are essential tools for
  taking responsible social action and working for
  justice.
• Studying mathematics fosters development of
  critical thinking.

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Setting Context for Problem Solving

• When will I need this?
• Not just trivial examples
• Applications to Real Life

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Appreciating Beauty

• What is beauty? How do I recognize it?
• Can we think about beauty in mathematics classes?

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Examples from particular classes

• First-Year Experience
• (aka Freshman Seminar)
• Intermediate Algebra
• Applied Statistics / Data Analysis
• Geometry
• Senior Seminar
• Denotes courses I will highlight in this
  presentation.

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Intermediate Algebra Statement on Syllabus

• This course is designated FIC
• You will be invited to apply what you are
  learning in this course to the world beyond our
  classroom walls
• Problems will include
• Environment and ecology
• Health and life sciences
• Social justice

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Intermediate Algebra Mathematics Personal
Wellness

• Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
• BAC no. of oz. x alcohol x 0.075 / wt. in
  lbs. - hrs. of drinking x 0.015
• Body Mass Index (BMI)
• BMI 704 x wt. in lbs. / height in inches

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Mathematics Personal Wellness

• BAC, BMI are complicated formulas
• Order of computations is critical
• Class discussion / textbook examples
• Test questions show that students dont
  understand these formulas
• How to make this computation real?

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Intermediate Algebra Mathematics Personal
Wellness

• Choose a person - yourself, friend, another, or
  make up someone
• Describe the person (one paragraph)
• name, age, height, weight
• Student? / athlete? / job?
• Personality, behavior at a party

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Intermediate Algebra Mathematics Personal
Wellness

• Suppose this person goes to a party where alcohol
  is served.
• Calculate this persons BAC.
• What did he/she drink?
• Check label for alcohol content.
• Show your calculations.
• Discuss what this means.
• Should he/she drive home?
• What other options does he/she have?

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Intermediate Algebra Mathematics Personal
Wellness

• Calculate this persons BMI
• Present your calculations clearly
• Does this person have healthy body weight?
• How many pounds does he/she need to gain/lose to
  have a healthy body weight?

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Florence Nightingale Statistics / Data Analysis

• Who was Florence Nightingale?
• http//pictures.ask.com/pictures?qFlorenceNighti
  ngaleqsrc8
• http//www.florence-nightingale.co.uk
• http//www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/WOMEN/nitegale.h
  tm
• http//www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/WOMEN/night_educ
  .htm
• Why did I give this assignment?

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Florence Nightingale

• Crimean War she observed more deaths from
  disease than from war wounds
• She compiled, analyzed, presented data
• She developed polar-area diagrams - the precursor
  to pie charts
• She made extensive use of statistical analysis in
  epidemiology
• She established correlations between sanitation
  and public health

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Florence NightingaleDescriptive statistics for
social change

• Florence Nightingale used statistics to identify
  important problems, and to work for social
  change.
• Assignment Use methods you have learned in this
  course to present a statistical poster on an
  important social justice issue.

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Florence Nightingale Important issues of social
justice

• Human trafficking
• Free-trade
• Local poverty concerns
• School lunch and daily attendance
• School lunch and graduation rate
• Death penalty

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Florence Nightingale

• Florence Nightingale developed polar-area
  diagrams, the precursor to our pie charts.
• Assignment Use Excel to present a data set in a
  pie chart. Draw a polar-area chart to represent
  the same data set.

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Florence NightingaleData on Causes of Death
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Florence Nightingale Pie Chart
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Florence Nightingale Polar-Area Diagram
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Statistics / Data Analysis Simpsons Paradox

• Two hospitals
• City Hospital, Franciscan Hospital
• The following data were published in the local
  paper (on next slide)
• Calculate the proportion of patients who survive.

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Hospital Statistics
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Hospital Statistics
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Hospital Statistics

• Suppose you are Director of Public Relations at
  Franciscan Hospital.
• You are concerned about negative publicity
  created by this news article.
• You found some additional data

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Hospital Statistics
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Hospital Statistics

• Convince yourself that the data in the second
  table are consistent with the data in the
  newspaper article.
• For patients with good prognosis, compare
  recovery rates at the two hospitals.
• For patients with poor prognosis, compare
  recovery rates.

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Hospital Statistics
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Hospital Statistics

• What is Simpsons Paradox?
• As PR Director, you are concerned about
  publicity.
• Like Stritch, Franciscan Hospital strives to
  promote Franciscan values.

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Hospital Statistics

• Write a letter to the Editor of the paper.
• Follow guidelines for letters to the Editor given
  in the local paper.
• Readers of the paper have only seen the data
  presented in the first table.
• That article appeared a week ago.
• You are committed to maintaining a good
  relationship with City Hospital.

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Effectiveness of these assignments

• Do students make applications beyond the
  classroom?
• Do students really learn mathematics?
• Do students appreciate these assignments?

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What do students say?

• I liked the Franciscan projects and wish we had
  more of them because they helped me understand
  the material better.
• The Franciscan assignments made the values seem
  relevant to mathematics.

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What do students say?

• The Franciscan assignments helped me to gain a
  more personal understanding of what the
  Franciscan values are, and how they apply to my
  personal life.
• In the future make them in-class group
  assignments so that there is more dialogue with
  peers about these issues.

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What do students say?

• I never knew what human trafficking was, and Im
  glad Im aware of this problem.
• I learned more about Franciscan values in this
  course. The assignments helped me to see the
  world with Franciscan eyes.

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What do students say?

• The story of Florence Nightingale showed the
  influence of women in mathematics and statistics.
• The group work and Franciscan assignments not
  only helped me learn geometry, but also helped me
  grow as a person.

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What do students say?

• Weve discussed the Franciscan values in other
  classes, but we never applied them to real life
  experience such as mathematics.

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Continued discussion

• Can we infuse values into our core courses
  without compromising the content? How?
• Should we infuse values into our teaching? Why?
• Can Calculus (or ) be infused with Franciscan
  values? How?

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• Sr. Barbara Reynolds, sds
• Cardinal Stritch University,
• Milwaukee, WI
• breynolds_at_stritch.edu