META Math

About the Project

How can standard mathematics major courses connect back to high school topics in a way that enriches deeper understanding of both? And how might doing this produce more motivated new teachers as well as more engaged mathematics students? The MAA META Math project addresses these connections by creating curriculum material for math major courses that treat applications to “high school content” as just as valuable as applications to business or STEM disciplines. The use of these materials will, in turn, lift the Mathematical Knowledge of Teachers to the same level of importance of other application areas (such as business or STEM fields) for mathematics within and throughout the standard mathematics curriculum. The initial subject areas for the META Math lessons are:

Abstract Algebra
Single Variable Calculus
Discrete Mathematics
Statistics

META Math will add to the research knowledge base by assessing college students’ understanding of school mathematics from an advanced perspective.The project enhances student understanding of the vertical connections from school mathematics through advanced undergraduate mathematics among all mathematics undergraduates. All undergraduates, not just future teachers, will benefit from the deep mathematical understanding fostered by instructors using META Math modules.

Request Access to META Math Lessons

Project Goal

The goal of the META Math project is to increase faculty capacity to guide undergraduate pre-service teachers in:

Making explicit connections between undergraduate mathematics and secondary school mathematics, and
Developing deep, sophisticated understanding of mathematics taught in grades 7-12.

Project Objectives

Develop quality instructional lessons that make explicit connections between college mathematics and school mathematics;
Pilot test these materials and pilot a year-long faculty development program to train faculty on the use of these lessons;
Research student learning that results from the use of these lessons, and evaluate the effectiveness of the faculty development program that prepares faculty to use these modules.

Webinar - May 2020

Explicitly addressing applications to teaching in advanced mathematics courses requires a culture shift. Our textbooks often point out applications to other disciplines—physics, economics, sociology, biology, forensics, and the like. They do this through side-discussions and special exercises. Could there not be examples of applications of this mathematics to school teaching as well? Shouldn’t there be? This webinar featured five presenters representing two different NSF-funded projects, MAA META Math and MODULE(S^2), and is available to watch now.

Watch the Webinar