Story as a Mathematics Instructional Strategy

Traditional mathematics curriculum does not always meet the student’s needs. Lecturing students does not engage, motivate, and activate their critical thinking skills. Essentially, the curriculum has become separated from the real-world context in which mathematical theorems are applied. Students don’t understand the purpose in their learning. STEM curriculum focuses on the content areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; however, the STEAM curriculum takes the STEM curriculum a step further by incorporating the arts into those content areas. By doing so, it reaches more students in an innovative approach of the creative process. The instructional strategy of story is the arts of STEAM curriculum. By incorporating story into mathematics curriculum, it is engaging and motivating students to learn the content from a student-centered approach. Students are become fully embraced within the story and use the mathematical content to apply and predict the story outcomes. It requires students to continuously reflect, communicate, and apply their mathematics ideas to the story