- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2345194
- First Name Jessi
- Last Name Lajos
- Institution Utah State University
- Role/Position Co-PI
- Proposal Type Workshop
- Workshop Category Track 3: Master Teaching Fellowships
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Mathematics
- Target Audience Noyce Master Teachers, Noyce Teaching Fellows, Undergraduate and/or Graduate Noyce Scholars
- Topics Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
- Additional Presenter(s)
Brynja Kohler; brynja.kohler@usu.edu
Goals
Participants will: 1. Engage with professional development STEM activities that center culture and nature, 2. Develop an awareness of and appreciation for culturally relevant games and traditions, and 3. Work together to develop and share prompts that motivate K-12 mathematics content and reasoning through the game.
Evidence
Supporting literature/theoretical framework on socio-ecological “gestures” for mathematics education (Coles et al., 2024) and use cases.
Proposal
Access to professional development workshops and community building events in rural areas that promote native culture, inclusion, and joy in STEM remains limited (Bundock, 2023; Schneiter, 2010). To improve access to professional development and reach teachers, students, and their families living in rural Utah districts, the Utah State University Mathematics, Statistics, and Data Science Education Group facilitates bi-annual professional development workshops in conjunction with the USU STEAM EXPO. For this Noyce Summit we will share teacher professional development activities that center culture and nature. We will read “Changing Woman Teaches Tsidił to the Diné” and play Tsidił – the Navajo Stick game. Game playing instructions are provided by the San Juan School District Curriculum Center in Blanding, Utah. We will end with a group discussion on the ways that participating educators could engage K-12 students in mathematical thinking through this game.
