Opportunity to Interpret: Infection Rates in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic provided students a rare opportunity to use their mathematical knowledge to make sense of a top-of-mind crisis. Based on a report in a major regional newspaper, we designed tasks that require an understanding of infection rates and an interpretation of a misleading claim made in the newspaper. Our analysis of 91 undergraduate students’ responses to one of the tasks shows that 77% of the participants used the first or second derivative to interpret the claim. While an assessment for fundamental calculus courses may include both the memorization of procedures and high-cognitive-demand tasks, the findings suggest that it is feasible and worthwhile to build assessment questions on a meaningful connection with the real world.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• exponential functions
• calculus
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 See https://www.nytimes.com/column/whats-going-on-in-this-graph for some examples.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaoeheng Yan

Xiaoheng Yan is a Postdoc Fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her research interests include students’ learning and understanding of mathematical reasoning and proof, mathematical content knowledge of prospective teachers, and use and integration of digital technology to enhance concept development.

Veselin Jungic

Veselin Jungic is a Professor at the Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University. Most of his research is in Ramsey theory and the field of mathematics education and outreach. He is a 3M National Teaching Fellow and a recipient of several teaching awards, including the Canadian Mathematical Society Teaching Award and the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences Educational Award.