Story Archetypes in Mathematics Curricula: How is Eureka Math/EngageNY like STAR WARS?
Are you going to the NCTM 2018 conference next week in Washington, DC? Do you want to learn about the thinking behind the Eureka Math/EngageNY curriculum from the lead writer and lead mathematician? Then put the following talk on your schedule:
Story Archetypes in Mathematics Curricula: How is Eureka Math/EngageNY like STAR WARS?
Scott Baldridge
Thursday, 26 April, 2018
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
?Room: Ballroom C
Here is the updated description of the talk: True learning is unsettling, bringing the student to the edge of order and chaos. One powerful way to help students navigate in this unsettled, creative space is by submersing them into archetypal stories like the hero’s journey. Like literary works, math curricula can have archetypes embedded in them---some of these archetypes are as old as Euclid. Most often, US mathematics curricula are encyclopedic, running through disconnected contents, or they spiral up through skill-building repetition of topics. In this talk, I describe how mathematics curricula can be conceptualized around epic tales so that students may experience in their mathematics learning the narrative continuity of a well-written story. I illustrate how archetypal story lines formed the main organizing principles behind the Eureka Math curriculum.
Find out more about archetypes in math curricula and the idea of "curriculum as epic story" here: