Mathematical media literacy in the COVID-19 pandemic and its relation to school mathematics education

Readability and beyond - Health literacy and numeracy and COVID-19 communications in early childhood education: Are we communicating effectively?

OBJECTIVE

Analyse the linguistic and numerical complexity of COVID-19-related health information communicated from Australian national and state governments and health agencies to national and local early childhood education (ECE) settings.

METHODS

Publicly available health information (n = 630) was collected from Australian national and state governments and health agencies, and ECE agencies and service providers. A purposive sample of documents (n = 33) from 2020 to 2021 was analysed inductively and deductively combining readability, health numeracy and linguistic analyses and focusing on the most frequent actionable health advice topics.

RESULTS

COVID-19 health advice most frequently related to hygiene, distancing and exclusion. Readability scores in 79% (n = 23) of documents were above the recommended grade 6 reading level for the public. Advice was delivered using direct linguistic strategies (n = 288), indirect strategies (n = 73), and frequent mitigating hedges (n = 142). Most numerical concepts were relatively simple, but lacked elaborative features (e.g., analogies) and/or required subjective interpretation.

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 health advice available to the ECE sector included linguistic and numerical information open to mis/interpretation making it difficult to understand and implement.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Combining readability scores with measures of linguistic and numerical complexity offers a more holistic approach to assessing accessibility of health advice and improving health literacy among its recipients.

Exponential behaviour and variational practices in Chilean newscasts: a socioepistemological view

The research on which we report in this paper was framed within the socioepistemological theory and dealt with the fundamental role of variational practices in the understanding of COVID-19 pandemic graphs. Given the proliferation of mathematical graphs related to the pandemic in the media, we proposed to analyse the variational practices in use in the interpretation of graphs of exponential behaviour that a Chilean newscast of high rating used to inform the population about the pandemic in Chile. For this purpose, a thematic analysis intertwined with documentary analysis techniques was carried out, in order to describe the types of graphs shown in the newscast, and a variational reference system was studied to analyse the use of variational practices. To obtain our results, the types of graphs most frequently shown in the newscast at the beginning of the pandemic were identified and the use of the variational practices of comparison, seriation and prediction in such graphs was analysed. In conclusion, the need is discussed for the conceptual evolution of the exponential function to be accompanied by a pragmatic evolution in school that favours the use and development of variational practices in the student body.

Will we ever teach mathematics again in the way we used to before the pandemic?

After about two years of emergency remote teaching during the pandemic, the teaching of mathematics is slowly returning to (what used to be called) normal. However, after the period of mostly teaching online, there is uncertainty about the extent to which we will return to the way we were teaching before. In this survey paper we attempt to give some background to the impact that emergency remote teaching may have had on teaching mathematics. We examine the possible social implications and then focus on the changing mathematics classroom, focusing on the actual mathematics curriculum, learning design and assessment, the role of collaborative activities and social media, educational videos, and the role of family and parents in future. There are indicators from the literature that educators may not return to the traditional way of teaching entirely, especially in secondary and higher education. We conclude with describing some possible new research areas that have developed through emergency remote teaching, including online education for younger learners, local learning ecosystems, the role of family and parents, instructional design, and the mathematics content of curricula.

Mathematical modelling of exponential growth as a rich learning environment for mathematics classrooms

Mathematical concepts are regularly used in media reports concerning the Covid-19 pandemic. These include growth models, which attempt to explain or predict the effectiveness of interventions and developments, as well as the reproductive factor. Our contribution has the aim of showing that basic mental models about exponential growth are important for understanding media reports of Covid-19. Furthermore, we highlight how the coronavirus pandemic can be used as a context in mathematics classrooms to help students understand that they can and should question media reports on their own, using their mathematical knowledge. Therefore, we first present the role of mathematical modelling in achieving these goals in general. The same relevance applies to the necessary basic mental models of exponential growth. Following this description, based on three topics, namely, investigating the type of growth, questioning given course models, and determining exponential factors at different times, we show how the presented theoretical aspects manifest themselves in teaching examples when students are given the task of reflecting critically on existing media reports. Finally, the value of the three topics regarding the intended goals is discussed and conclusions concerning the possibilities and limits of their use in schools are drawn.

Welcome to the era of vague news: a study of the demands of statistical and mathematical products in the COVID-19 pandemic media

In this article, we report on a typology of the demands of statistical and mathematical products (StaMPs) embedded in media items related to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. The typology emerged from a content analysis of a large purposive sample of diverse media items selected from digital news sources based in four countries. The findings encompass nine categories of StaMPs: (1) descriptive quantitative information, (2) models, predictions, causality and risk, (3) representations and displays, (4) data quality and strength of evidence, (5) demographics and comparative thinking, (6) heterogeneity and contextual factors, (7) literacy and language demands, (8) multiple information sources, and (9) critical demands. We illustrate these categories via selected media items, substantiate them through relevant research literature, and point to categories that encompass new or enhanced types of demands. Our findings offer insights into the rich set of capabilities that citizens (including both young people and adults) must possess in order to engage these mass media demands, critically analyze statistical and mathematical information in the media, evaluate the meaning and credibility of news reports, understand public policies, and make evidenced-informed judgments. Our conclusions point to the need to revise current curricular frameworks and conceptual models (e.g., regarding statistical and probability literacy, adult numeracy), to better incorporate notions such as blended knowledge, vagueness, risk, strength of evidence, and criticality. Furthermore, more attention is needed to the literacy and language demands of media items involving statistical and mathematical information. Implications for further research and educational practice are discussed.

Effect of COVID-19 Closures and Distance-Learning on Biology Research Projects of High School Students in Israel

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a situation, the “anthropopause”, of lockdowns and distancing among individuals to reduce the spread of the disease. One of the major problems to surface is the inequality of the educational process in schools. We present a study of high school students who conduct a year-long research project with an academic. We hypothesized that the projects would not be impacted because of the individual manner of study involved. We analyzed the number of research proposals submitted in the years 2015–2021. We compared the data of the pre-epidemic period with the two pandemic years, 2020 and 2021. Our data show that in the years of the pandemic, significantly less research proposals were submitted, and the number of research proposals rejected was lower, but the total number of research proposals approved, or the number of theses submitted, was not significantly different. The research areas in which Israeli high school students conducted research were mostly in the laboratory (63.2%) and agriculture (27.5%), while ecology was relatively insignificant—whether in captivity (3.1%) or the field (5.1%). A new field that is fast becoming of interest is bioinformatics. Research in agriculture was significantly lower during the pandemic period, while there were no differences in the other subjects between the two periods. We conclude that the fewer research proposals submitted suggest that those that did not take the subject seriously enough did not begin the process. This resulted in a lower number of rejections and is substantiated by the fact that an equal number of students that submitted their final theses did not differ from the years before the pandemic. We are optimistic that the truly motivated students will continue to make the effort to be involved in biology science projects over and above their regular school curriculum and in spite of the COVID-19 restrictions and limitations.