Opportunity to Interpret: Infection Rates in the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic provided students a rare opportunity to use their mathematical knowledge to make sense of a top-of-mind crisis. Based on a report in a major regional newspaper, we designed tasks that require an understanding of infection rates and an interpretation of a misleading claim made in the newspaper. Our analysis of 91 undergraduate students' responses to one of the tasks shows that 77% of the participants used the first or second derivative to interpret the claim. While an assessment for fundamental calculus courses may include both the memorization of procedures and high-cognitive-demand tasks, the findings suggest that it is feasible and worthwhile to build assessment questions on a meaningful connection with the real world. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Primus Problems, Resources & Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)