Dustin Purdy Blog

It’s that time of year again— conference season . One of my favorite parts of being an educator is the opportunity to step outside of my own classroom, connect with other educators, share ideas, and learn from the experiences of others. Conferences give us a chance to pause from the day-to-day demands of teaching and think about the bigger questions: How can we create better learning experiences for our students? How can we make mathematics more meaningful? How do we ensure every student sees themselves as a mathematician? This year, I’m excited to have the opportunity to present at NCSM, NCTM, AMTNYS, and AMTNYC . While the sessions have different focuses, there are some common threads running through all of them: student agency, meaningful mathematics, data literacy, equitable access, discourse, and creating learning experiences that center students as thinkers. NCSM: Data Stories for Justice At NCSM , I’ll be presenting Data Stories for Justice: Empowering K–12 Students to Investiga...

Every day, our students encounter data. They see statistics in social media posts, sports highlights, advertisements, news stories, weather forecasts, health claims, and infographics. They are constantly presented with graphs, percentages, averages, rankings, and claims about what the numbers supposedly tell us. But being surrounded by data does not automatically make someone data literate. As mathematics educators, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to help students think more critically about the data they encounter in their daily lives by asking deeper questions about the meaning behind it. Questions like: Where did these data come from and who is the source? How were they collected? What does this graph show—and what might it hide? Whose perspectives are represented? Whose are not represented? What patterns or variability do we notice? Is there potential bias? And perhaps most importantly: What conclusions can we reasonably make from the evidence? These questions are at th...

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate the rich history, culture, and contributions of Hispanic and Latinx communities. It is also an opportunity to learn about the people and ideas that have helped shape our society. This year’s theme, “Together We are More,” really made me think about how we define a pioneer. When I hear the word pioneer, I usually think about someone who was willing to try something different. Someone who questioned what had always been done and decided to take a different path. Someone who opened a door that others could walk through. There are a lot of pioneers in mathematics and it is important that we help our students recognize that they can be pioneers! Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, which coincides with the independence anniversaries of several Latin American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days shortly after on September 16 and September 1...