Judy and everyone,

This is a not a direct response to Judy's post, although I have to admit 
reading a post from someone else who also would rather play with numbers 
than words has intrigued me enough to write. So...

My job is as a community-based researcher in the field of early care and 
education. My work is about responding to research questions posed by the 
community, working with the community to gather the data to answer the 
questions, and then giving the community back the data to take action. As I 
have produced more and more reports, it has started to trickle back to me 
that folks need help understanding how to read data. How do you look at a 
graph and understand what it's telling you? How do you critically read a 
statistic? How do you read data that is displayed on a map? How do you take 
data and use it in key decisions? These skills are all second nature to me, 
but I have begun to think of them as a type of "data literacy". Data 
literacy in the manner of skills for how to read and gain meaning from 
numbers. This current conversation has me intrigued because I am realizing 
that perhaps this set of skills are also called numeracy skills, and perhaps 
there are a lot of other folks already out there thinking about numeracy 
skills and teaching them to adults. So all of that to say I am curious to 
hear from other folks about their experiences teaching data literacy to 
adults? Any suggestions of resources that define data literacy and discuss 
how to teach it to adults (adults who have a range of education levels from 
GED/HS diploma to Master's degrees, but mostly all experience some level of 
math anxiety, and certainly the overwhelming majority of who are women), I 
would be appreciative to hear them.

Thanks for your time and to Judy for moderating this discussion,
Corey

* ~ Faring thee well now. Let your life proceed by its own design ~ *

Corey Zimmerman
em: midnightmorningglory at hotmail.com






>From: "Judy Ward" <j.e.ward at cox.net>

>Reply-To: The Women and Literacy Discussion List <womenliteracy at nifl.gov>

>To: <womenliteracy at nifl.gov>

>Subject: [WomenLiteracy 347]  math anxiety

>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:27:45 -0500

>

>Greetings to everyone,

>

>Since this is a women and literacy list serve I assume that all have a deep

>concern and interest in advancing women through a literacy perspective.

>Also, I assume that you all love reading and writing and would like to help

>others feel the same way.

>

>To get the numeracy and math anxiety discussion going I would like to begin

>from a different direction. I would like to tell you a little about my

>"anxiety" with English class during my k-12 years. Although I never made 

>bad

>grades, English class was a challenge for me. Remembering all the sentence

>structure rules was overwhelming and didn't make sense. Diagramming a

>sentence, as well as the other 10 or so that were assigned, was a painful

>task. The process didn't make sense to me and I wasn't able to carry the

>exercise over to writing.

>

>Writing was and still is another challenge and most of the time almost a

>painful experience for me. You could say that my anxiety about putting 

>words

>on paper is a stumbling block and I have to work extremely hard just to get

>started. There are times when I must write something important, like now,

>that my stomach gets knots in it, my mind goes blank and I have to write 

>and

>rewrite over and over. Just before I send this email my anxiety level will

>increase drastically because someone will read this and find mistakes or

>think the writing is terrible. Where does this anxiety come from? Probably

>past experiences with teachers that loved and knew their subject but didn't

>teach the way I learn. We know a lot more now about how learning takes 

>place

>than in my k-12 years.

>

>Now, for today's discussion question: Is there a relationship between

>literacy and the content in a typical English class in the US?

>

>I look forward to the discussion.

>

>Judy Ward

>

>

>

>Judy Ward, Ed.D.

>6886 Young Farm Avenue

>Springdale, AR 72762

>Phone: 479.361.2223

>Fax: 479.361.2223

>Email: j.e.ward at cox.net

>

>Arkansas Adult Numeracy Campaign

>Teaching Mathematics Effectively to Adult Learners

>

>

>

>

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