Math in the City: Experiencing Mathematics through Visiting Black Historic Sites

Abstract

This article describes a project that models a university/museum partnership providing K-12 teachers with authentic learning opportunities that integrate personal experience and reflection. Mathematics is often presented to students as isolated rules and procedures. When teachers and students see the role that mathematics plays in their cultures, and the contributions of their cultures to mathematics, they often come to understand the subject in new ways. Math in the City is a program for teachers in which they experience mathematics and culture as interconnected. As teachers begin to understand teaching mathematics as less a matter of knowledge transfer, and more as an activity in which connections are made to all of life, they see their own role change from being direct transmitters to serving as facilitators in helping students make mathematical connections.