Research Guides: Critical Media Literacy: Math

Research Guide Attribution

Dr. Tatevik Mamikonyan teachers Critical Media Literacy (EDUC 466) in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Her academic interests explore the connections between science, math, and critical media literacy. Contact her via email (tmamikonyan@g.ucla.edu).

Institutes, Museums, Research Groups and More!

California Math Council (CMC). Resources and regular conferences to support math teachers. *See anti-racist math lesson materials.

Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). Championing efforts to "ensure digital technologies serve and strengthen democratic values, institutions, and processes."

Programs: Resources and activities about digital health, consumerism, citizenship, and youth rights.

Ce nter for Humane Technology (CHT). Focuses on leading shifts towards humane technology that "supports our well-being, democracy, and shared information environment."

Free course (self-paced; remote): Foundations of Humane Technology
Selected Resources: Podcast (Your Undivided Attention), Recommended Films and teaching materials, Youth Toolkit, Parents and Educators Toolkit

Todos: Mathematics for ALL. Equity-minded professional development and resources for math educators.

The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Leading efforts in developing resources, professional development, and knowledge sharing about the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Resources for incorporating media literacy in mathematics classrooms

Books

Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best
ISBN: 0520274709
Date: 2012-08-07
Here, by popular demand, is the updated edition to Joel Best's classic guide to understanding how numbers can confuse us. In his new afterword, Best uses examples from recent policy debates to reflect on the challenges to improving statistical literacy. Since its publication ten years ago, Damned Lies and Statistics has emerged as the go-to handbook for spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers.
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil
ISBN: 9780553418811
Date: 2016-09-06
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated. But as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can't get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he's then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a "toxic cocktail for democracy." Welcome to the dark side of Big Data. Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These "weapons of math destruction" score teachers and students, sort résumés, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health. O'Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change.

Math

Gutstein, E.R. & Peterson, B. (Eds.). (2013).

Rethinking Mathematics

Articles and lesson resources for teaching math from a social justice perspectives.

Publications of All Kinds

Bali, M. (2019). Reimagining digital literacies from a feminist perspective in a postcolonial context, Media and Communication, 7(2), 69-81.
Bietti, E. (2020, January). From ethics washing to ethics bashing: a view on tech ethics from within moral philosophy. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 210-219).
Bump, P. (The Washington Post). How To Read This Chart - A weekly newsletter (available after signing-up) to dymystify data portrayed in popular news stories.
Casey, G. (2013). Interdisciplinary literacy through social media in the mathematics classroom: An action research study. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(1), 60-71.
Devlin, K. (1996). Mathematics: The science of patterns: The search for order in life, mind and the universe. Macmillan.
Deubel, P. (2010). "Web 2.0 in Instruction: Adding Spice to Math Education."
Gutstein, E. (2012). Reading and writing the world with mathematics: Toward a pedagogy for social justice. Routledge.
Kier, M. W., & Khalil, D. (2018). Exploring how digital technologies can support co-construction of equitable curricular resources in STEM. International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 6(2), 105-121.
Ko, A.J., Beitlers, A., Wortzmann, B., Davidson, M., Oleson, A., Kirdani-Ryan, M., Druga, S., Everson, J. (2022). Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education. https://criticallyconsciouscomputing.org/
Lockhart, P. (2009). A mathematician's lament: How school cheats us out of our most fascinating and imaginative art form. Bellevue literary press.
Moloi, T. J., & Matabane, M. E. (2020). Reimagining the sustainable and social justice mathematics classrooms in the fourth industrial revolution. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 19(12), 281-294.
Moses, R., & Cobb, C. E. (2002). Radical equations: Civil rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project. Beacon Press.
Powell, A. B., & Frankenstein, M. (Eds.). (1997). Ethnomathematics: Challenging eurocentrism in mathematics education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. *See other works by Frankenstein related to critical mathematics education here.

Power On! (open access - MIT Press). A graphic novel about four youth that "take a stand about the education they need, while learning how technology can be used for social good instead of harm. Written by: Drs. Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis; illustrations by: Charis JB. Free downloadable teaching guide available online here.
National Academies: Science, Engineering, Medicine. (2017). Communicating Science Effectively.
NPR. (2020 Sept 19). "Lies, Damned lies, and Proofiness." An article discussing Seife's (2010) Proofiness: The dark arts of mathematical deception.
Sriraman, B. (2008). International perspectives on social justice in mathematics education. Monograph in The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast Monograph Series in Mathematics Education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Rethinking Schools. (2013). Learning Math, Learning Justice, 27(3).
Tan, E., Barton, A. C., Turner, E., & Gutiérrez, M. V. (2012). Empowering science and mathematics education in urban schools. University of Chicago Press.
The Math Projects Journal. Provides evidence-based research strategies for teaching mathematics and supplementary lessons and resources.
Stinson, D. W., Wager, A., & Leonard, J. (2012). Teaching mathematics for social justice: Conversations with educators. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Thacker, I., Copur-Gencturk, Y., & Cimpian, J. R. (2022). Teacher Bias: A discussion with special emphasis on gender and STEM learning. In T. L. Good & M. McCaslin (Eds.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Education: Educational Psychology Edition.
Vecchione, B., Levy, K., & Barocas, S. (2021). Algorithmic auditing and social justice: Lessons from the history of audit studies. In Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (pp. 1-9).
Wise, T. (2019). "Forget STEM, We need MESH: The importance of media literacy, ethics, sociology and history education." Medium.
Wise, T. (2020). Moving from STEM to MESH. The Journal of Sustainability Education.
Yang, K. W. (2009). Mathematics, critical literacy, and youth participatory action research. New directions for youth development, 2009(123), 99-118.

Karaali, G. & Khadjavi, L.S. (2021).

Social justice: Focusing on quantitative reasoning and statistics. MAA Press: An imprint of the American Mathematical Society

Collections: Lessons, Podcasts, Reports, TED Talks, Videos

AdaptedMinds. Math games for grades 1-8.
(Baker, F). Math and Science Connections to Media Literacy. Many resources and lessons for teaching math and science.
(EdTechBooks). Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning: 21st Century Women STEM Innovators Lesson.
Futurama Math. Resource guide created by Drs. Sarah J. Greenwald using video clips from Futurama to teach math concepts.
Geogebra. Free digital tools for class activities, graphing, geometry, collaborative whiteboard and more.
(Gonchar, M.). A Lesson Plan for Learning With Our Collection of Inequality Graphs (New York Times, May 11, 2021).
Graphing Stories. Short digital stories (~15 sec. each) that students can watch and then graph on their own.
Kutasoftware. Create your own math worksheets and activities.
(Mamikonyan, T.). Photo Trail Assignment
(Mamikonyan, T.). Podcast Episode Assignment
Mathematics Genealogy Project.
NASA's Earth Math. This collection of activities is based on a weekly series of space science problems distributed to thousands of teachers during the 2009-2010 school year. They were intended for students looking for additional challenges in the math and physical science curriculum in grades 9-12. The problems were created to be authentic glimpses of modern science and engineering issues, often involving actual research data.

Radical Math. Focuses on supporting educators to address issues of social and racial justice in math classrooms (offers curriculum, lesson planning resources, and professional development).
Simpsonsmath. Resource guide created by Drs. Sarah J. Greenwald and Andrew Nestler using video clips from The Simpsons to teach math concepts.
(The Math Project). How big is Barbie? A pre-algebra lesson focusing on the skills of estimation to determine the size of life-size dolls and action figures using ratios and scale factors.

On the Media (Hosted by: Brooke Gladstone)
Pivot (Hosted by: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway)
Your Undivided Attention (Center for Humane Technology)

This section is currently in progress.

Mona Chalabi: 3 ways to spot bad statistics (2017, 11:36 mins)
Cathy O'Neil: The era of blind faith in big data must end (2017, 13:10 mins)
Nicole Cabrera Salazar: Diversity in STEM and DAST (14:43 mins)
Alexis Scott: The hidden women in STEM (2018, 11:56 mins)

Mathematics Education for the Flat World: What Should We Be teaching our Children for Life in the 21st Century. (Dr. Keith Devlin, The Tech Museum Lecture Series, May 27, 2012, 1:04:15 hrs)
The Invisible Gorilla - Selective Attention Study (Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, 1999, 1:22 mins)
The Joy of Statistics (Hans Rosling, Gapminder, 2010, 59:13 mins)