Reflect on the difference between mathematics and numeracy. Provide some real life examples, this might include videos, photographs or other creative mediums.
After researching this topic to fully understand and comprehend it I found that John Hogan (2012) states that:
“In mathematics, many put an emphasis on the content concepts and skills contained typically in strands such as Algebra, Number, Geometry, etc…. Numeracy’ was seen by many as a set of core basic mathematical skills that young people need to deal with the mathematical demands of life, work and learning” (Hogan, 2012).
Therefore, I believe that numeracy refers to the mathematical abilities that are required to participate and engage in everyday life. This makes numeracy an extremely important aspect of mathematics to learn and understand, as it is the mathematics that is learnt in schools that has been transferred into real life situations. By creating real world mathematical modelling problems to engage students educators allow students to develop much needed knowledge which later in life will allows these individuals to understand the best deals in supermarkets, home loans and budgeting etc. These learnt skills are essential to human flourishing in our modern times.
It is imperative that this basic understanding of mathematics be obtained during the years of primary; and furthermore secondary schooling, in order for individuals to apply numeracy skills once schooling is complete and students become functioning adult members of our society.
Throughout my life I have found that my strengths definitely do not lie with maths. I dreaded having to undertake mathematics education at university because of this. I found it very interesting to discover that numeracy was a part of everyday life. I was astounded by this and didn’t realise of my own abilities and proficiency with mathematics until I learnt this new information. Overall it helped make me feel a lot more knowledgeable than I previously thought I was. It also helped me to have confidence in my own natural abilities to comprehend content and educate others.
On a day to day basis, I use an exorbitant amount of numeracy whether it is in a shopping centre, looking at the time, counting money, or driving. I now realise how vital it is for my students to engage in mathematics from their earliest years in order to gain strong and useful skills that will carry them through their day to day activities and their lives. Each day we are all strengthening our understandings of mathematics and numeracy without realizing it, but the differentiation between maths and numeracy still remains a little unclear when it comes to the specific differences at various stages of learning. With time I hope to understand the content with fluency so I am able to instantly differentiate between mathematics and numeracy. This will assist me by enabling to let me know what type of mathematics education I am providing students. Once I know this key information I can then taylor the students learning to include equal amounts of both mathematics and numeracy.
I found it interesting to read John Hogan’s paper and I strongly agreed with him that it is helpful that ACARA has included numeracy as ‘general capability’ within the curriculum, and perhaps this will clear some confusion that exists in regards to mathematics and numeracy across the stages.
What is extremely clear to me however is the importance of mathematics and numeracy overall and how it assists all people from all walks of life.
