Why Build Resilience?

Read: Discussion Post on Resilience:

When talking about mathematical identities with my students, resilience was a common theme that arose in every conversation. Students reflect that perseverance in problem-solving, for example, is a crucial characteristic for mathematicians. A few other characteristics were also mentioned -- you can read about one example of the discussion post on the left. 

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There is quite a bit of literature surrounding building mathematical resilience, I will quickly reference two of them here. One of the best things I am taking away from the Penn program is the idea of embracing the glory of the struggle. This is something that our math methods teacher, Josh Thurbee, constantly emphasized and modeled for us. Creating the productive mathematical struggles, then, is central to setting the stage for students to develop their resilience. 

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In Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All,  the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics argues that “Teachers must accept that struggle is important to students’ learning of mathematics, convey this message to students, and provide time for them to try to work through their uncertainties” (NCTM, 2014, p. 50). 

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One method that I have found to be particularly effective in cultivating students' resilience is by using groupworthy tasks that inevitably and intrinsically place students in positions of discomfort within a group setting. In Strength in Numbers: Collaborative Learning in Secondary Mathematics, Horn (2012) argues that groupworthy tasks help shift students' thinking and build “mathematical habits of mind” (p.37). The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2014) argued that teachers should create groupworthy tasks with an understanding of culture and context that would allow students to use their prior knowledge and experiences. In effective groupworthy tasks, “Students’ engagement in solving these tasks is more strongly connected with their sense of identity, leading to increased engagement and motivation in mathematics” (p.17).

My work on building mathematical resilience through groupworthy tasks is also inspired by and built on Francis Su's work in his book, Mathematics for Human Flourishing. Su (2020) emphasizes the importance of building a mathematical community where people share mathematical experiences and a sense of belonging. Within that mathematical community, teachers should work on "developing collaborative skills that diminish hierarchies", and attention should be placed on “student agency, identity, and power” (pp. 192-193). 

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Furthermore, in my Inquiry Project, I discuss the use of mathematical modeling for social justice to further cultivate student resilience. As The Society For Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM, 2019) states, “students will have to think about making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Their opinions matter and influence their answer to this question. They still have to do the same mathematics to answer the question, but they are forced to reconcile their answer with reality, making the mathematics more relevant and interesting” (p. 10).