The mission of the Tulsa-OK Mathematical Literacy Project is to help the Tulsa area's math-needy youth and adults ... and especially its ["targeted"] math-suppressed adults and their families. The Project's means of doing so is to provide a program of community education in basic-literacy mathematics ... a program that will reach into the homes and communities of the math-suppressed.
The optimal medium is a library of video movies, recorded on DVDs for free issue to the general public. The DVDs are to be distributed throughout the area, free of cost to their users, through a network of collaborating local organizations. Tulsa-area organizations or individuals also may use the MatheLite materials to conduct associated math workshops of various kinds. The videos will appeal mostly to math-needy persons who seriously want to qualify for access to particular educational or vocational opportunities ... and to parents and teachers who want to learn how to help children to make mathematics common sensible to children.
The MatheLite Video Library is produced, in Tulsa, by the MatheLite Project's Community Advisory Council. The Council represents the Tulsa community's concerns about its math-fearing, math-illiterate, math-suppressed adults and their families. For their benefit, the Council serves as the publisher of the MatheLite instructional materials. The Council staff also provides supportive services for the Library's distributors.
The MatheLite videos must be well tailored to fit the needs of math-suppressed humans ... to learn basic-literacy math points, naturally, enjoyably, leisurely, and conveniently. Creation of the Council's video library is a research & development function of Tulsa's non-profit MALEI Mathematical Learning Clinic. The Clinic strives to locate existing movies that might be duly incorporated into the Library. It also generates some videos.
The movies: The MatheLite videos do not dwell on school-type mathematical formalisms, but on the naturalness and common-sensibility of basic-literacy mathematics. On the wings of watching video stories about how best to comfortably do enjoyable things ... and actually doing those activities ... the humanly natural learning of basic-literacy mathematics progressively builds the viewers' personal mathematical intelligence, self-esteem, self-confidence and potentials.
The movie stories actually are "how-to" guides for performing interesting and enjoyable activities. On the surface, each movie is about how to do some kind of fun activity. Below that surface, each video naturally and informally instructs the viewers of the video, and the doers of that activity, about some topic within basic-literacy mathematics. Those activities are custom-selected to be auto-instructive about the basic-literacy mathematics that is woven through the activities. The mere learning of how to do the activity ... as prescribed by that video MatheLite Activity Guide ... automatically causes the underlying mathematics to be learned.
Ultimately, the Project's video library is to cover all of basic-literacy mathematics. Since that will take a while, basic-literacy topics are prioritized with regard for what Mathelite stories would provide the highest level of benefits for math-suppressed adults. The top priority is "fractions", and the most familiar context is "in the kitchen". So, the Library's first "shelf" is to be a series about"Kitchen Fractions."
Because the MatheLite Library's movies must attract and enlighten persons who are math-fearing and math-illiterate, each movie must satisfy stringent criteria before it can qualify for inclusion in the Library. Among those criteria is the requirement that the movie's effectiveness with the targets must be tested first through casework with individuals within the Project's Mathematical Fitness Clinic ... followed by test-piloting within the "math coaching" clinic, the Adult-And-Child Math Workshops Other criteria pertain mostly to the movies' respective screenplays and filming.
The screenplay criteria are manifested in a rough draft video about fractioning ... whose 40 sec. preview appears to the right. The video's "math points" must flow quite naturally and commonsensibly from familiar, non-curricular activities. [Such rough drafts must later be re- filmed for professional videographics, ]
It is highly probable that some math movies which already have been published could qualify for inclusion in the MatheLite Library ... after passing both tests. So, for some of basic-literacy math-points, it might be more cost effective for the Library to import existing movies than to create new ones.
However, many basic-literacy math points are not covered by any existing math movies, and most of the existing math movies are too scholastic for use by the targets. So, a major part of the MatheLite video library will consist of videos produced by the Mathelite Project.
When the MatheLite videos are circulated for city-wide use by the targets, the videographics must be of professional quality. Attaining that level of theatrics and filming is too costly to be attempted before the movies have been tested and verified through the Project's Clinic and Workshops. So, the Project composes draft videos whose videography is at the amateur level ... as with the preview video, above. After the drafts have been clinically verified ... and accepted by the Project's Community Advisory Council, the movie is re-filmed by theatric and video graphic professionals ... who closely follow the accepted draft. [A more revealing version of the video previewed, above, appears at the bottom of this page.]
Design framework for the Mathelite videos: Whether a MatheLite Movie is produced by the Project or by another producer, it must have certain ingredients:
a mathematical scope: an identifiable family of basic-literacy math-points that are presented by the film. Some points are the (LOA) Learning Objectives to be Achieved by the targets, from using the videos as prescribed. Some other math points are "hidden seeds"
for later sprouting within other movies. Some points are about the nature of mathematics or about learning mathematics. Some of a movie's math points might be evident to lay viewers, some additional points being evident to math educators, and some further additional points discernable only by professional mathematicians who know much about the philosophy and psychology of mathematics.
a mathematical syllabus: an identifiable succession of the movie's mathematical points, according to the time-order in which they are presented in the film. The ordering of the LOA's must be developmentally continuous ... meaning that each of the movie's points must derive naturally and commonsensibly from the points that preceded it within that movie.
a mathematical base: an identifiable body of mathematical knowledge that is prerequisite to achieving the movie's LOAs by using only the movie, as prescribed. The distinction between necessary and sufficient previous knowledge must be discernable, although perhaps only by experts.
a contextual story: in the form of some person(s) performing one or more activities which: (1) are of interest to the targets, (2) can entertain the targets,(3) appear to be commonplace or recreational doings of adult life, (4) could have been performed with little or no reference to the associated mathematics, (5) might readily be replicated by the targeted adults, (6) equip the targets to easily and effectively coach others to do, (7) are performed in such a way that the movie's mathematical syllabus naturally flows through that performance.
a mathematical storyboard: is the structuring of the mathematical syllabus into a series of mathematical "snapshots" which together define the mathematical flow that is to occur (or already does) through the video presentation. The movie's theatric storyboard (of video scenes) defines a particular activity whose performance manifests that mathematical storyboard. For an existing movie, the theatric storyboard is fixed. But when producing a movie, a given mathematical storyboard might be costumed in any one of several alternative theatric storyboards.
a formal screenplay: that reveals how the mathematical and video storyboards are transformed into the video story ... including scenes, costumes, camera angles, script, etc.
a collection of video clips: as excerpts from an existing movie, used for studying or discussing that movie ... or as "takes" of a Project-developed movie, used for composing a draft.
That framework is to be used for analyzing the structure of existing "math movies" with regard for their possible use as MatheLite videos. The same framework is to be used for designing the videos produced by the Project.
Verification of MatheLite movies: Whether a MatheLite Movie is produced by the Project or by another producer, it must meet certain criteria, including the following:
The mathematical syllabus must be fully commonsensible to the targeted users.
That is verified through eductive instructional casework within the Project's Mathematical Fitness Clinic. A theatric storyboard (for a MatheLite activity) is developed and/or tested with regard for how the learner's mathematical growth responds to that person's doing of that activity as prescribed ... without the clinician telling the mathematics to the learner.
The activity (in the theatric storyboard) must be one that the targets can easily perform, when guided by the video.
In the clinic, the clients watch the video and then perform the activity ... without interventions by the clinician. The clinician studies the learner's response, for purposes of verifying or modifying the theatric storyboard. [In reality, the targets must be able to identify with the performing actor(s) ... whether or not actually doing the activity. Preference is for activities that are much like what the targets sometimes do in daily life.]
The theatric story board must define a movie that will attract the attention of targets who are not motivated to learn mathematics. They should be able to watch it from curiosity, or for entertainment and enjoyment ... and then find it mathematically interesting, informative, and gratifying.
When done only through clinical casework, the clinician's observations and discussions with the learner are the only sources of insight ... unless the target chooses to share the video with others, between clinical sessions. More revealing are kiosk presentations in populous, confined locations.
The activity must be one that the targeted adults easily can effectively coach others to perform ... whether or not for purposes of helping them to learn the mathematical points.
Through clinical casework, and more so through the Adult-And-Child Math Workshops, clinical staff can assess how well the movie empowers the targets to math-coach children.
The activity must be of a kind that anyone who learns to perform it well, when done as shown in the movie, is certain to have grasped at least the movie's LOAs ... if they already owned the prerequisites.
That can be verified only through challenging the learner to do some other activity that demands use of the math syllabus points from the movie. Such applied-performance exercises can readily be posed in the clinical and workshop settings.
