Colby-Sawyer College to Host Northeast Consortium on Quantitative Literacy, Writing with Numbers Workshop
NEW LONDON, N.H. – Colby-Sawyer College will host the 12th annual Northeast Consortium on Quantitative Literacy (NECQL), an event for educators to explore strategies and practices for strengthening students' quantitative literacy skills. A two-day Writing with Numbers Workshop prior to the conference will allow participants to develop and share assignments that engage students in writing with numbers across fields of study.
The Writing with Numbers Workshop will be held Thursday, May 15, and Friday, May 16, followed by the NECQL conference on Saturday, May 17, at Colby-Sawyer's New London, N.H., campus. Educators at all levels are invited to participate in one or both events, and registration is required. There is no registration fee for these events.
The conference and workshops are a response to an urgent national need recognized by educators across the country to improve students' ability to understand and apply mathematical concepts and reasoning skills. The events will bring educators together to explore the issues, current research and practice of integrating quantitative literacy skills into the liberal arts curriculum.
The NECQL conference will feature presentations and discussion led by faculty members in mathematics, psychology, technical communications, writing and other disciplines from Hollins University, Middlebury College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of South Florida and Carleton College. They will address such topics as “Illuminating Arguments with the Power of Numbers,” “Making Time for it All: Integrating Writing, Speaking and Quantitative Reasoning in Disciplinary Courses,” “Quantitative Reasoning Using Case Studies from the News” and “The Published Numeracy Network.” Additionally, participants will present work from the Writing with Numbers Workshop. The conference is funded in part by a Colby-Sawyer College grant from the National Science Foundation for Quantitative Literacy Across the Curriculum in a Liberal Arts Setting.
The Writing with Numbers Workshop will feature a keynote address by Mya Poe, Ph. D., director of Technical Communication with MIT's Writing and Humanistic Studies Program, titled, “Storyboarding with Data: Using Quantitative Reasoning to Teach Scientific Writing.” Dr. Poe will discuss current writing-across-the-curriculum trends and a specific method used in a MIT quantitative physiology course called “storyboarding,” which illustrates the role of writing in the scientific research as a multi-step process that smoothly transitions from synthesizing research findings to report writing.
Led by faculty members from Carleton College and Wellesley College, the Writing with Numbers Workshop will engage educators interested in helping students learn to write and argue using quantitative information and reasoning skills. Participants will work together to refine specific writing assignments from across disciplines that involve students in writing with numbers. The workshop is organized by the National Numeracy Network and Carleton College's Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning and Knowledge (Quirk) Initiative.
For the Writing with Numbers Workshop, priority will be given to applications received by Monday, April 14. Participants in the NECQL conference are urged to register by Friday, April 25. For more information and registration, visit the NECQL conference web site at www.colby-sawyer.edu/necql and the National Numeracy Network's Writing with Numbers Workshop at http://serc.carleton.edu/nnn/news/workshop08/registration.html, or contact Colby-Sawyer Assistant Professor of Mathematics Semra Kilic-Bahi.
This conference is sponsored in part by a Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) grant from the National Science Foundation (#0633133), Quantitative Literacy Across the Curriculum in a Liberal Arts Setting. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed at the conference do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Our students learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with pre-professional experience.
Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000.
