Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and the Social Sciences
A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach
By (author) Kathleen W. Craver
Publication date:
22 July 2014Length of book:
190 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
236x162mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781475810509
History and social sciences educators have been charged with ensuring that our students are quantitatively literate. Being able to integrate research data in the form of graphs, charts, and tables and deconstruct quantitative evidence to address questions and solve problems is no longer the domain of mathematicians. Being quantitatively literate is considered an educational imperative in a data-drenched world that holds so many employment challenges. The internet contains a treasure trove of valid and reliable sources of quantitative data that history and social sciences teachers can easily use to satisfy the quantitative literacy requirements of the National Common Core Standards.
This book features 85 interesting and exciting multi-century and multicultural web sites that are accompanied by numerical critical thinking questions and activities. Teachers can pose the questions to their entire class or individually assign them. It also contains lists of best practices and examples for interpreting, visualizing, and displaying quantitative data. History and social sciences educators will find this book an indispensable tool for incorporating numerical literacy skills into their class activities and assignments.
This book features 85 interesting and exciting multi-century and multicultural web sites that are accompanied by numerical critical thinking questions and activities. Teachers can pose the questions to their entire class or individually assign them. It also contains lists of best practices and examples for interpreting, visualizing, and displaying quantitative data. History and social sciences educators will find this book an indispensable tool for incorporating numerical literacy skills into their class activities and assignments.
Craver uses a Web–based approach to transform the national common core standards requirement for quantitative literacy in the humanities into a powerful instrument for teachers. She provides history and social science educators with resource sites for lesson plans, educational activities, and opportunities to use the search software that accompanies these sites. Many teachers and their students avoid using numbers as evidence in history and the social sciences due to their own math anxiety. Craver addresses the fear of numbers in the first two chapters of this book, and provides basic instructions for how to use, interpret, display, and visualize quantitative sources. The remaining chapters contain a variety of quantitative websites that include relevant topics for high school students such as piracy or natural disasters, plus site-related critical thinking questions. Educators may want to recommend this book to their secondary students as a potential term paper resource book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.