Relating Math to the World

The plague of today's math classroom is the idea that a "word problem" is a "real-world application." Students are given a problem and then find some formula or method that will enable them to "solve" the problem. Do we see the problem with what I just said? Applications today are full of pointless and meaningless problems, Sally has 8 apples and she sales them for $0.82. If Sally only sold 6 apples, how much did she make? This problem is a pointless and meaningless! Pointless because it does it is simple multiplication. It also does not introduce the new big thing, rigor! We as educators are expected to teach students how complete basic problems with increased rigor! Our apple problem does not support the new challenges that are expected of our students. This problem is meaningless! It has no true real world application and it is merely a problem we introduce to allow to students to use simple multiplication. So, how do we increase rigor and make it more of a real-world application?

We need to look at two factors:
1) Find an article that details some thing to do with the problem you are creating.
2) Ask yourself three questions
     A) Does the article have mathematical significants?
     B) Can you formulate a question from the information given?
     C) Is your problem multi-step and solvable?

I am going to use this article I found from www.nytimes.com, Cheetahs’ Secret Weapon: A Tight Turning Radius.

Does the article have mathematical significants? This article talks about the speed of cheetahs.

Can you formulate a question from the information given? Yes, let's make one.

The average speed of a cheetah is 33 mph with a standard deviation of 8 mph. What percentage of cheetahs can run faster than 58 percent?

Is your problem multi-step and solvable? Yes and yes!

In conclusion, the first thing you need to see is we need to make problems that have meaning to the student. This can be done by determine the likes and dislikes of the student. We also need to make the problem truly have some point to today's world. If we find an article that has mathematical significance and relate it to the concepts we are teaching, then the student will begin to understand math is a governing force in today's world.