Analysis of Media Overreacting to Reports of Exploding iPhones Report by Arik Hesseldahal - Assignment Example

Topic: Critical Numeracy Student’s Name Course name Institution’s name Instructor’s name 11th February 2011 Introduction The media report selected is authored by Arik Hesseldahal and it appeared on the Bloomberg Businesweek magazine on 19th August 2009. The media report is titled “Media Overreacting to Reports pf Exploding iPhones”. Descriptions of aspects of critical numeracy in the media report A number of aspects of critical numeracy can be explored and developed I the media report above. For example, a number of basic mathematical terminologies have been used in the media report. Such terminologies include analyze, examine, feet (to mention few). All the above basic mathematical terminologies are applied in the media report in different contexts. For example, analyze is a basic mathematical terminology which means to establish the truth or facts of a mathematical question. In the media report, the terminology is presented in the context of trying to establish the truth of information regarding the explosion of two iPhones belonging to Apple Company in France. In this regard, the terminologies analyze as used in mathematics and in the present context in the article have the same meaning. The second terminology is examine. This is a basic mathematical terminology which refers to the act of going through a mathematical question or problem in order to determine the appropriate solution to the problem. The terminology is presented in the article in the context of Apple Company trying to go through the problems highlighted in the media report pertaining to the problems in its iPhones. In this regard, the terminology is used in the article as it is applied in mathematics. The other basic mathematical terminology used in the article is feet. This terminology is basically used in mathematics to show the distance from one item to the other or the size of an object. It is presented in the article as a measure of the distance an iPhone moved after it exploded into the air after becoming faulty. Hence, the terminology is also applied in the article just as it is applied in mathematics to represent distance or the size of an item. There are several critical numeracy opportunities presented in the article. First, the article presents information that can be questioned such as the number of customers that have raised complaints about the overheating of the iPhones worldwide or in US. The article also presents information that can be questioned such as the percentage of iPhones that have caused damages to the iPhone customers or their properties as well as the amount of refund the company is expected to issue to its customers going by the current trend of injuries and damages as well as faulty iPhones bought by customers from the company. All these are critical numeracy opportunities presented in the article. An informal plan The numeracy resource model was used as the tool for implementation. It consisted of: De-coding- this includes determining the basic mathematical terminologies and mathematical ideas the trial are able to bring out of the article Meaning establishment- This involves determining whether the trial were able to establish or make meanings of the basic mathematical terminologies mentioned above (analyze, examine and feet). It also involved determining how much each of the subjects in the trial knows about the terminologies above. Uses- this comprised of examining the trial’s understanding of the application of the above terminologies in mathematics as well as the application in the article. It therefore involved determining the understanding of the trial on the significance and implication of each terminology as used in mathematics and as it is presented in the article. Analysis- This comprised of establishing whether the trial were able to determine the truth and fairness in the application of the terminologies in the article. Questions asked Some of the questions asked in the plan for implementation included: What are the different mathematical terminologies used in the article? What does the mathematical terminology used in the article mea to you? Can you single out mathematical concepts used in the article? What mathematical procedures and processes are presented in the article? What is misleading or confusing about the usage of the terminology in the article? How can different concepts in mathematics help you to understand the usage of the terminology as presented in the article? Can you relate to what you already know about different mathematical terminologies? Are there additional possible applications or meanings of the terminologies a part from the way they presented currently? Are mathematical or number concepts useful in their present presentation in the article? What are the likely impacts of concepts in this context? Relevant aspects of the subjects This plan was trialed using 3 subjects or people. The first person was 20 years of age and was female. She is a nursing student in one of the nursing colleges in the town. The second person was 25 years old and was a male. The person is a trained mathematics teacher in the nearby school. The third person was 19 years old and a medicine student in one of the medical colleges in the town. Although, the three people with who this plan was trailed are literate and educated in different fields, they have little knowledge about the aspects of critical numeracy. It is therefore evident that in spite of the many years spent in schools and institutions of learning, many educated and literate people have got no understanding about their critical numeracy levels. In addition, depending on the occupation of the individuals and their interaction levels with quantitative aspects of their occupations the easier to remember and recall different terminologies used in mathematics. This means that as a trained mathematics teacher, the second person is more conversant with numerous mathematical concepts and numbers which he can single out of the article within a short time as opposed to the rest of the subjects. What the trial revealed about the individual’s critical numeracy It is imperative to note that critical numeracy can be perceived as the ability of an individual to apply mathematical concepts in making decisions on everyday issues. Critical numeracy therefore serves as a lens through which the student’s thinking abilities can be visible in their daily judgments, reading and actions. The objective of the trial was to give the persons involved in the trial the opportunity to explore the mathematical concepts used in the article and make sense out of those concepts. In addition, the trial also aimed at enabling the three persons to connect the mathematical concepts used in the article and their application context. This would enable the three people to move to critical thinking about the relationship between both the context of application and the mathematical concepts used in the article. The other objective of the trial was to explore different views that the three people have regarding different concepts in mathematics in order to reconcile their views. Furthermore, the trial was also aimed at giving the three people the opportunity to use their new acquired knowledge of critical numeracy through real world application in their studies and their occupations. Towards this end, the trail revealed a number of things about the individual’s critical numeracy (Marcia and Gary, 2001). First, it revealed that different people have different understandings about mathematical concepts. This is contributed by the fact that during the process of critical numeracy application, different people exhibit different abilities in going deeper into the concepts and mathetical ideas applied in a given context. Those with such abilities of digging deeper into the mathematical concepts and ideas used in a given context also challenge the importance of such ideas by relating such ideas and concepts to the text or with the context of application. In this regard, such people are not only interested in the rules of learning mathematics but they are also interested in questioning the validity, usefulness and application of such ideas in any given context. From the three people above, the trained mathematics teacher exhibited deeper abilities in not only understanding the rules, concepts and ideas of mathematics used in the article but he also demonstrated a deeper ability in questioning the application, usefulness and validity of such ideas in the text. On the contrary, the trial revealed that some people may have an understanding of the rules, ideas, and mathematical concepts used in a given context but they do not dig deep into questioning the application, usefulness and validity of such ideas and concepts as used in the text. Such people assume that the concepts and math ideas are presented correctly in any given context as long as they enhance the understanding of the text or information in which they are incorporated. In ties regard, rather than exploring and questioning the validity and usefulness of the ideas and concepts used in the text such people only concentrate on the rules (Marcia and Gary, 2001). This was the case with the nursing and the medicine student among the here subjects in the trial. The trial also revealed that the more a person is exposed to quantitative reasoning the more the person’s quantitative thinking develops. As a result, such people have a high level of critical numeracy than others. For example, in the trial, the trained mathematics teacher exhibited a high and deeper level of critical numeracy than the other two people due to his experience with numbers during his teaching lessons. It was also evident from the trial that such a person has a high level of creativity and is able to collect all the mathematical concepts and terminologies used in a particular text and categorize them into a concept map which makes it easier to understand the ideas and the concepts used. By creating concept or idea maps, such a person is able to create a different representation of data as used in the text to make the data more meaningful and clearer to any other user. It was also evident from the trial that critical numeracy is enhanced though a combination a number of factors. These factors include understanding the concepts and ideas used in mathematics, developing criticality in exploring and questioning the usefulness of the ideas and concepts, engaging in group discussion from where people can learn new ideas and concepts as well as the application of such ideas and concepts and finally through creative application of the ideas and concepts in different contexts. The four factors mentioned enables people and especially students to derive sense from any mathematical ideas and concepts used in any given text. The trial also revealed that people and particularly students have pre-conceived skills, cognitive frameworks and ideas due to long exposures to specific mathematical procedures and ideas which limit their explorative abilities. In this regard, teachers and instructors must help their students to go out of their pre-conceived boxes of cognitive frameworks, skills and ideas by finding procedures and ways of helping the students’ to establish useful links between the curriculum content, contexts and their ideas. The trial also revealed that teachers have an important role especially in understanding individual student’s methods of thinking and students ideas (Paul, 2009). This is important because with such a level of understanding teachers can be able to make these methods and ideas held by students visible. Teachers can provide interventions through their experiences in order to enable the students to connect and establish useful links between their mathematical ideas, their ideas and the application of such ideas in different contexts. Through such help, students can use mathematical concepts to perceive perspectives differently and distinguish the validity of each of the concepts used in different contexts. In addition, the trial also revealed that the understanding of particular mathematical concepts such as percentage is related to the age of the student. For example, it was evident that the trained mathematics teacher in the trial being older than the rest was able to develop a proper sequence of in relation to percentage terminology in the article. However, the medical student being the youngest in the trial had a difficult time forming sequences that could help him understand the application of percentage terminology in the article. For instance, the comprehension of part-whole percentage representation as related to 100% (whole representation), establishing the relationship between decimal and fraction representations in percentages as well as interpretation of percentage terminologies used in the context were some of the differences that prevailed between the subjects in the trial with the older person in the trial having a thorough understanding of all the these issues. The trial also revealed that although people may have experience in solving mathematical problems, they lack the basic understanding of the quantitative skills such as units, arithmetic, exponents and linear equations. In addition to the quantitative skills, the trial also revealed that people have little understanding of the higher skills such as reading; analyzing and comprehending mathematical text, models; predicting, analyzing, formulating, non-linearity and linearity, speaking; expressing facts and quantitative ideas orally through effective communication, estimation; checking the reasonableness of answers and results, information literacy; making use and accessing the effectiveness of any form of quantitative information. In this regard, it is the duty of the teachers to develop these skills in order to enhance critical numeracy in the students (Watson, 2009). A reflection on the above experience It is clear from the trial that critical numeracy is an important step in enhancing the student’s abilities in mathematics. More importantly, critical numeracy should be embraced by all the teachers particularly the mathematics teachers in order to develop the student’s reasoning skills. The above experience will inform my teaching of critical numeracy in a number of ways. First, it will help in developing more quantitative skills in my students because one of the major problems identified in the trial is that although people may have mathematical ideas and concepts they might not have sufficient quantitative skills and knowledge which limits their application of mathematical ideas and concepts in different concepts. Second, it is also clear that relying heavily on the curriculum where specific mathematical procedures and ideas are taught continuously limits the student’s critical numeracy abilities because students lack the key contextual understanding and application of mathematical ideas and concepts in different contexts. In this regard, this experience ill inform my teaching of critical numeracy by helping in finding more ways that can assist the students to make useful links between the content in the curriculum, their ideas and any other contexts. This would help to not only reduce the pre-conceived cognitive frameworks, skills and ideas that students’ posses but it will also help them to develop explorative skills which can be used in different contexts. Third, and just a recap, this experience will inform my teaching of critical numeracy in that it will help in understanding diverse thinking ways and ideas exhibited by students in order to develop proper methods of helping the students to make their thinking ways and ideas visible. This involves helping the students to make connection and develop relations between mathematical ideas, their ideas and application of these ideas in different contexts. The objective is to enable the students to always establish the validity of any applied mathematical ideas and concepts in any given context. Fourth, the above experience has also opened by eyes and it has informed my teaching of critical numeracy in that it has fostered my understanding of the sequences through which students learn different concepts and their abilities to apply such ideas and concepts in their daily encounter with mathematics. For instance, a 7th grade student would not apply the same sequence in the application of mathematical ideas and concepts as would a college student and thus differentiating their abilities would be vital in the development of effective instructional methods. REFERENCES Marcia Davidson and Gary McKinney. (2001). Quantitative reasoning. Washington: Western Washington University. http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/dialogue/issue8.html (Accessed on 11th February 2011). Watson, J. (2009). Developing critical numeracy across the curriculum. http://www.simerr.educ.utas.edu.au/numeracy/student_reasoning/student_reasoning.htm (Accessed on 11th February 2011). Arik, H. (2009). Media overreacting to reports of exploding iPhones. Bloomberg Newsweek. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2009/tc20090819_085338.htm (Accessed on 11th February 2011). Paul, W. (2009). Critical numeracy and abstraction: percentages: describe an approach to teaching percent that puts contexts and application before abstract concepts and procedures. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6932/is_1_14/ai_n35649590 (Accessed on 11th February 2011). Read More