Math and Economics: Implementing Authentic Instruction in Grades K-5

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to outline a partnership program that involved a local elementary school district, an institution of higher education, the local business community, and a state economic education advocacy group to integrate economics into math in grades K-5. The-Economics: Math in Real Life‖ program was provided in collaboration with a Title I program to integrate economics and personal finance content into mathematics instruction to demonstrate real-life applications of math concepts and increase students' knowledge in this content area. Pretests and posttests were administered to gauge effectiveness of the authentic instruction program in increasing student knowledge in math and economics and teacher knowledge in economics. Empirical results indicate learning occurred in both math and economics for students in grades 3-5 and in economics for teachers.

Linking K-12 STEM Pedagogy to Local Contexts: A Scoping Review of Benefits and Limitations

“…Ten of the studies used qualitative methods only, 11 studies used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, with only four studies using exclusively quantitative methods and having sample sizes of more than 300 students. Articles were related to STEM with some focusing on mathematics (Althauser and Harter, 2016;Walkington and Bernacki, 2019), science (Buck et al, 2016;Francis et al, 2016;Leonard et al, 2016;Rahmawati and Koul, 2016;Gates, 2017;Zimmerman and Weible, 2017;Fűz, 2018;Bølling et al, 2019;Flanagan et al, 2019;Herman et al, 2019;Iversen and Jónsdóttir, 2019;Kermish-Allen et al, 2019;Kinslow et al, 2019;McClain and Zimmerman, 2019;Zimmerman et al, 2019;Littrell et al, 2020a;Littrell et al, 2020b;Land et al, 2020), technology (Litts et al, 2020), and general community issues with links to STEM pedagogy (Donnison and Marshman, 2018;Ritter et al, 2019;Kim et al, 2020). While most studies approached localized learning by taking students to community and environmental contexts outside of the classroom, other studies connected students with experts and their communities through the internet (Kermish-Allen et al, 2019) or brought the outside world into classrooms through virtual reality (Ritter et al, 2019;Boda and Brown, 2020).…”

“…Some articles (Rahmawati and Koul, 2016;Donnison and Marshman, 2018) identified that students had an opportunity to develop a critical voice and that they led the learning with their teachers only assisting when necessary. Students who were previously disengaged with STEM learning in the classroom showed an increase engagement in a localised setting (Althauser and Harter, 2016;Rahmawati and Koul, 2016) because students came to see subjects like science as personally relevant (Littrell et al, 2020a;Littrell et al, 2020b;Boda and Brown, 2020). In summary, it was found that the use of authentic instruction to teach STEM in the context of real-world circumstances promoted longer-term learning and increased student comprehension of the relevance of STEM in the real world (e.g., Althauser and Harter, 2016;Leonard et al, 2016;Rahmawati and Koul, 2016;Gates, 2017;Zimmerman and Weible, 2017;Bølling et al, 2019;Ritter et al, 2019;Littrell et al, 2020a;Littrell et al, 2020b).…”

“…Increased interest and knowledge promoted students' aspirations towards careers in STEM fields (Leonard et al, 2016;Gates, 2017). Teachers from multiple articles reported that their students enjoyed hands-on activities with real-world application to their personal lives outside of the classroom (e.g., Althauser and Harter, 2016;Buck et al, 2016;Rahmawati and Koul, 2016;Gates, 2017;Zimmerman and Weible, 2017;Donnison and Marshman, 2018;Fűz, 2018;Bølling et al, 2019;Flanagan et al, 2019). There were two ways to approach the issue of personal relevance.…”

Authentic Learning in Teaching Economics

“…Many researchers Gonzales, Andrade, Civil, Moll, 2001;Skovsmose and Valero, 2002;Civil, 2002 as cited by Althauser and Harter (2016) supported the idea that education when based on students' experiences, needs and problems, it could be transformative in nature. Through active and authentic learning, an enjoyable, interesting and meaningful learning atmosphere can be created which Quintero (2007) called as "true learning".…”

“…Through this, teachers will be empowered to transfer knowledge and skill into the everyday lives of the students outside the school which is then the true value of learning. Althauser and Harter (2016) also claimed that authentic instruction could be effective in improving students' achievement. If this will be an approach in the curriculum of the Philippine secondary public schools, there may be a difference in what kind of graduates it produces.…”