Teaching Critical Literacy Principles to Math and Science Educators

This scholarly journal provides some insight into issues in science and math assessment
by linking some of the practices we see in those classes to how science and math teachers
were taught. The author of the article is the professor of a class designed to help soon to
be teachers learn how to deal with culturally and linguistically diverse students. One of
the major goals of the course is to integrate literacy into all types of classes, including
math and science. She realizes that many of the future educators with science and math
backgrounds find it difficult to imagine integrating literacy and other ideas into their
classes because they have differing opinions and attitudes that have been influenced by
their backgrounds in the two subjects.
The first difference in attitude the author mentions that applies to math and science
majors is that they have usually been taught to rely on the textbook as the number one
resource for their classes. Thus, students usually do not look for other resources to
support their learning, and often just go through the textbook without questioning it.
However, one math teacher mentioned in the article that after taking this literacy course,
she discovered how important writing was in assessing her students and how well they
were learning the concepts. Writing about their answers made it so they had to organize
and reflect on their ideas, thus getting a better understanding about the concepts learned.
Another attitudinal difference that student teachers with math and science backgrounds
came in with was the fact that there had always been a focus on getting correct answers.
Thus, math and science students often have a hard time understanding how literacy can
be integrated into those programs because they are used to having to get the right answers
and thats it. However, assessment could be more effective if literacy was involved and
students had to show the thoughts behind the right answers so teachers would know if
they were actually on the right track or not.
The last attitudinal difference mentioned is that many math and science students are not
taught literacy in those classes because teachers think they would run out of time to teach
the content. Often these subjects have a focus on summative assessment verses formative,
and as previously mentioned, multiple choice tests are generally the go to. However, if
literacy principles were brought into the classroom alongside the content, teachers could
assess students in a way that involves higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy. This kind of
assessment and involving literacy in math and science classes should be more common in
classrooms of today.
This article also includes examples of how teachers have integrated forms of literacy into
their science and math classes and how it has improved students understanding and
evolved the assessment process into one that no longer just asks for the right multiple
choice answer, but uses more formative and descriptive methods to check students
understanding.