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The Five Connections

Act l: Mathematics - The World Around Us!

Mathematics is part of our daily world!  We shop.  We balance our checkbooks.  We choose insurance plans for our homes, our cars and even ourselves!  We read advertisements, newspapers and magazines and look at all of the different tables, charts and graphs included on the pages.  We watch the weather report to see the highs and lows for the weekend.  Some of us may even buy that lottery ticket once a week and watch in anticipation as the numbers are called, even if we know our chances are 1 in 24 million!

Math is a major part of decision-making and problem solving in the real world of the workplace, family and community.  Math is real!  Often, we teach GED Mathematics by using workbooks and computer-assisted instruction that teaches the basics.  This form of teaching focuses primarily on the rules of math and the application of those rules through practice with story problems. Although teaching the basics is important, math is so much more.

Math is all about decision making and problem solving in the real world.  Instead of teaching math for math's sake, math must be taught as a thinking skill.  This places an entirely different focus on the GED classroom and the math.  Let's look at why our focus must change if our students are to be successful not only on the GED 2002 Series Mathematics Tests, but also in the real world.

This program was developed by Dr. Lucy M. Guglielmino, Florida Atlantic University, with content development by Susan Pittman and Bonnie Vondracek, through an Adult Education State Leadership Grant from the Florida Department of Education, Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Education. 

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this web-based training component, it is not an official publication of the Florida Department of Education.