Challenges and successes in implementing culturally

relevant activities for ELLs

Dr. Olga Kosheleva, olgak@utep.edu

Associate Professor

Teacher Education Department

Julian Viera Jr., jviera1@utep.edu

Doctoral Candidate in Teaching Learning and Culture

Lecturer/Director of Pre-Calculus and Calculus I

The University of Texas at El Paso

NCTM: 2016 Annual Meeting & Exposition

Acknowledgement: Most activities were created by L. F. Magana

Importance: Culturally relevance

• Culturally relevant pedagogy

is centered on the view that

cultural identities and

experiences are the

foundations for all other

experiences and behaviors

(Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching:

Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College

Press.).

Importance: Culturally relevance

“Culturally responsive mathematics

teachers leverage mathematical learning

by expanding children’s mathematical

thinking, building bridges between

previous knowledge and new knowledge,

supporting bilingualism and academic

language development, fostering

connections with cultural funds of

knowledge and experiences, and

cultivating critical mathematical

knowledge that enables students to

analyze and address authentic problems” (Aguirre, J. M., & del Rosario Zavala, M. (2013). Making culturally

responsive mathematics teaching explicit: a lesson analysis tool.

Pedagogies: An International Journal, 8(2), 163190.).

Possible Lessons

• Lessons could include references to the

geometry of Mayan art and architecture (Rojas, E. (2010).

Using mathematics as an equalizer for gifted Latino/a adolescent learners. Special populations in gifted education.

Understanding our most able students from diverse backgrounds, 353-382.).

Our number system vs. Mayan

vigesimal or base 20 system

Adopted from L. F. Magana (Magaña, L. F. (1990). Las Matemáticas y Los Mayas. Revista Ciencias,

Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM, pp. 19-26.)

Mayan Number Glyphs

It amazing, but nowadays we do not use base 20!

Can we use this type of representations for our

base 10 system?

Adopted from L. F. Magana (Magaña, L. F. (1990). Las Matemáticas y

Los Mayas. Revista Ciencias, Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM, pp. 19-26.)

Important details

Two types of grouping

• By fives ( = )

• By tens ( in the next vertical level)

For multiplication: one factor is placed on the left side of the

grid and the other is placed horizontally on top of the grid.

Division is exact inverse of multiplication.

Example of grid with

manipulativesBelow is the number 603 represented using Mayan Inspired

Manipulatives.

Geometry and Square roots

Square root computation is exact

inverse of multiplication (using

Mayan Inspired Manipulatives).

Manipulatives (grid paper)

Manipulatives (rods)

Manipulatives (shells)