Carleton Author

Grawe, Nathan; Rutz, Carol

Department

Economics

Journal Title

Numeracy

Publication Date

2009

Volume No.

2

Issue No.

2

First Page

Article 2

Publisher

University of South Florida Libraries

File Name

051_Grawe-Nathan_IntegratingQuantitativeReasoningInitiativesWithWritingPrograms.pdf

Keywords

quantitative reasoning, program development

Abstract

As an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, quantitative reasoning (QR) risks falling through the cracks between the traditional “silos” of higher education. This article describes one strategy for developing a truly cross-campus QR initiative: leverage the existing structures of campus writing programs by placing QR in the context of argument. We first describe the integration of Carleton College’s Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge initiative with the Writing Program. Based on our experience, we argue that such an approach leads to four benefits: it reflects important aspects of QR often overlooked by other approaches; it defuses the commonly raised objection that QR is merely remedial math; it sidesteps challenges of institutional culture (idiosyncratic campus history, ownership, and inertia); and it improves writing instruction. We then explore the implications of our approach for QR graduation standards. Our experience suggests that once we engaged faculty from across the curriculum in our work, it would have been difficult to adopt a narrowly defined requirement of skills-based courses. The article concludes by providing resources for those who would like to implement this approach at the course and institutional level.

Rights Management

Carleton College does not own the copyright to this work and the work is available through the Carleton College Library following the original publisher's policies regarding self-archiving. For more information on the copyright status of this work, refer to the current copyright holder.

RoMEO Color

Green

Preprint Archiving

Yes

Postprint Archiving

Yes

Publisher PDF Archiving

Unknown

Contributing Organization

Carleton College

Type

Article

Format

application/pdf

Language

English

DOI

10.5038/1936-4660.2.2.2

External URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.2.2.2

Included in

Economics Commons

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