Spreadsheets in the Quantitative Reasoning Pathway

Spreadsheets are a useful tool for organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data. Moreover, facility with spreadsheets is useful for students in their real lives and careers, as many occupations involve spreadsheet use. Spreadsheets are particularly useful for Quantitative Reasoning because they allow students to work with large, complex data sets and hence retain more of the complexities of real-world contexts.

Faculty at the MIP Quantitative Reasoning Initiation Workshop in May, 2021 recommended that instructional resources developed by CoRDs and ARCs addressing Spreadsheets for success in the Oklahoma Quantitative Reasoning Pathway should:

1. Base spreadsheet use in contextual problems, affording students an opportunity to address the social context of the data (e.g. including multiple values/perspectives/needs, attending to implicit biases)

2. Help students understand the value and utility of spreadsheets for analyzing and solving real-world problems.

3. Give students experience with a variety of spreadsheet uses, such as organizing information, creating formulas and graphs, etc. One such use might be a “what if” analysis, or the process of changing the values in cells to see how doing so affects outcomes. Another such use might be algebraic reasoning through implementing model-based formulas throughout a spreadsheet.

4. Employ spreadsheets to build important ways of thinking in Quantitative Reasoning, such as proportional reasoning, variational reasoning, and critical thinking.

Addressing Components of Inquiry

Participants of the MIP Workshop on Quantitative Reasoning suggested the following ways resources about Spreadsheets could address the three MIP components of mathematical inquiry:

Active Learning: Spreadsheets provide an opportunity for students to explore problematic situations whose resolution requires them to select, perform, and evaluate actions whose structures are equivalent to the structures of the concepts to be learned. Because spreadsheets simplify calculations, they allow ease of performing actions, which allows students to focus on justifying their selection of tools and on observing and evaluating the results.

Meaningful Applications: The computational power of spreadsheets allows students to focus on identifying mathematical relationships and making and justifying claims, rather than focusing on performing computations themselves.

Academic Success Skills: Spreadsheets provide an opportunity for students to collaborate and work in groups, which can help build classroom community. They also afford problem exploration and problem-solving. Spreadsheets may be new to students, and because they afford ease of computation, may help lessen students’ mathematics anxiety.

References

Gaze, E. (2019). Thinking quantitatively: Creating and Teaching a Quantitative Reasoning Course. In Tunstall, L., Karaali, G., and Piercey, V. (Eds.), Shifting Contexts, Stable Core: Advancing Quantitative Literacy in Higher Education. (p. 89-106). MAA Press.

Pea, R. (1985). Beyond Amplification: Using the Computer to Reorganize Mental Functioning. Educational Psychologist, 20, 167-182.