Chapter 7: Context as a Setting

con·text

/ˈkäntekst/

noun

1. the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

   "the decision was taken within the context of planned cuts in spending"

Context...the thing I am trying to give to you right now...is most simply put, "the setting". I really like that term, as it refers to some sort of "place" in our minds. The context of a statement or idea should paint a picture of where that information belongs.

I could say to you, "I'm so sorry I was late today, I blame it on my truck". There are a million different ways that could be interpreted. Did my truck not start this morning? Did I have a flat tire? Did I get stuck in the snow? Do I just love driving it so much that I took the long way?

Without context, you would never really know why I was late (but if you've seen my truck, you might be able to guess that it probably did not start).

Okay, so context is important in day-to-day conversation... but it doesn't stop there. This week in class, we discussed the use of context in the mathematics classroom. More specifically, we investigated the use of context to "hook" students into a situation which required them to use mathematics to solve/understand.

 For instance, we looked at Loblaw's initiative of diverting 1 billion plastic shopping bags from landfills by the end of 2009. Diverting 1 billion plastic shopping bags from our landfills seems like a really great initiative, but is it really that impressive? What does 1 billion shopping bags look like? That is such a large value, that it is difficult to really conceive. If you haven't already, try it. Think, what does 1 billion shopping bags look like? The size of a bus? A room? A house? A warehouse?

Its a very thought provoking idea, and as it did for me, this concept "hooks" students into wanting more. They want to figure it out...they want to figure out what this value "looks like". From here, there are an infinite amount of ways the lesson could progress, but that fact is, the context of the problem was so thought provoking that students wanted to find the answer.

I think the really cool thing about mathematics, it that it is everywhere around us. Whether we consciously choose to or not, we use math every single day to solve the many problems we encounter. This innate property of the subject can, and should, be harnessed by every mathematics educator to get students emotionally invested in the curriculum.

As you;re reading this, you may be thinking "Wow, this is really great, but it seems like such a daunting task!". I couldn't disagree with you more. Providing context doesn't always have to be an elaborate story or situation. If the problem captures their imagination or resonates with their life, they will be much more likely to become involved with the problem. For instance, when introducing the Pythagorean theorem, don't just use a triangle. Use something that is current/relevant to their lives. A lesson that a colleague and myself developed earlier this year used the concept of "Pokemon Go" to demonstrate the use of the Pythagorean theorem (see below).

This problem isn't any different than a regular old "given two sides of a right angled triangle, solve for the hypotenuse using the Pythagorean theorem" question, however providing context which is relatable to your students will generate very different results (and only took an extra 2 minutes to make).

As mathematics educators, we face the challenge of changing the perception that mathematics is "boring" and "too hard". I think that providing context to the problems we pose in the classroom is a great start.

Thanks for reading!

Comment below if you have any questions, also please consider the following questions to debrief my post:

-is there such thing as bad context?
-should we provide context for every problem we pose?
-are there dangers of providing "too much context" in a given problem?