Navajo Nations Math Circle Project Workshop

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This project is a community-based program that will offer workshops which will connect professional mathematicians and pre-service mathematics teachers from Diné College, with middle and high school teachers and students across the nation's largest Native American reservation. The project will create a program in this community, with the long-term goal that these extra-curricular mathematical activities will help future and present Native American teachers draw more Native Americans into mathematics and math-intensive STEM fields. Data confirm that Native Americans are under-represented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers and in higher education programs that would prepare students for work in STEM areas. These students have few opportunities to see mathematics beyond "school math" and therefore have limited exposure to non-routine problems, investigations, and the mathematical practices used by mathematicians and others in math-intense disciplines. This program has a multi-faceted approach, but is rooted in the "math circles" professional development and mathematical growth model. The project will recruit and support mathematics professionals to offer workshops at Navajo Nation schools, with the help of pre-service Mathematics teachers from Diné College and lead teachers and students in activities centered around math circle problems. Simultaneously, the pre-service teachers and mathematicians, with the help of workshop attendees, will work to produce activities which are culturally relevant to students from the Navajo Nation in grades 6-12. These scripts will be used for after-school enrichment in the style of math circles. The project leads will also facilitate a large annual math festival and workshop for students and teachers at Diné College and across the Navajo nation. Evaluation of the outcomes of the project will be tri-fold, with observations by an external team of faculty, presently involved with developing culturally relevant mathematics activities, an advisory board and an internal evaluation by the pre-service teacher educator from Diné College.