One Right Way? What Culturally Diverse Students Can Teach Us About Math

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One Right Way? What Culturally Diverse Students
Can Teach Us About Math
Barbara Acosta, M.S. Ed. Elementary and Middle
Schools Technical Assistance Center (EMSTAC)
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Elementary and Middle Schools Technical
Assistance Center
www.emstac.org
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What can our students teach us about math?
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Ways Math May Differ Across Cultures

• Money and Measurement
• Symbols
• Language
• Algorithms

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MONEY

• Money is money, right?
• But wouldnt you rather count cents, dimes and
  quarters than schillings?
• How much is 250 ?

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MEASUREMENT

• What the heck is a decameter, anyway?

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SYMBOLS AND NOTATIONS
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THE LANGUAGE OF MATH
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Learn to Count in Chinese

• Yí
• Er
• San
• Si
• Wu

• Liu
• Qi
• Ba
• Jiu
• Shi

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This makes Place Value a cinch, too
31

• 10
• 11
• 12

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Now Lets Add
31 24 ? 31 20 51 51 4 55
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How about subtraction?
13 9 (10 3) - 9 (10 - 9) 3 4
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ALGORITHMS

• Addition
• Subtraction
• Multiplication
• Division

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Addition around the world
Mexico
Britain
1 9 4 3 9 1 1 2 3 3
Ireland

• 1 2 3
• 31718
• 5 0 1

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Scratch Methods
Phillippines
Japan
- 9 7 3 4 - - 7 9 - 3 5 2 4 5
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Subtracting in Italian
832 226 ?
610
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Russian Peasant Multiplication
230 x 17
3910
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Practice!
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Why cant I start on the left?
South Africa
Belize
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Lets divide!
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Regla de Tres (Latin America)
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What will you do with all this new knowledge?