Pedagogy Resources for Essential Skill 3: Quantitative Reasoning

Employers want to hire problem solvers. Problems come in all shapes and sizes, and no one skill set effectively solves the kinds of problems employers face today. Graduates need to demonstrate flexibility as they employ skills from multiple academic disciplines to make decisions and arrive at conclusions. Increasingly, the complex problems graduate face require comfort, even proficiency, with data, numeracy, and quantitative reasoning. Graduates will have to make sense of data, use numbers to solve problems, synthesize and contextualize information from multiple data sets, and present information in ways that audiences that are fully-informed and not-yet-informed can appreciate and support.

Teaching Quantitative Reasoning

A Case for Quantitative Reasoning | Mathematical Association of America
Blog post written for mathematicians but accessible to broader audience making the case for quantitative reasoning as in-demand professional skill.

What is Quantitative Reasoning | Mathematical Association of America
Blog post providing broad and deep definition of quantitative reasoning. Author applies definition to easily-accessible examples of numerical-based problems.

Data-Informed Problem Solving

Build Your Data Skills | University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
Collection of resources to support students with little background working with data. Includes guides on finding data sets, selecting statistical tests, interpreting results, and citing and preparing data.

Data Science Course Framework | University of Texas Dana Center
Framework for high school data science course that teaches students to live and work in data-driven world. Includes principles for course design, curriculum, and assessment that can be extrapolated to higher education contexts.

Teaching Students How to Work with and Understand the Limits of Data | University Affairs
Article explaining how instructors can help ensure students develop skills to work with data responsibly.

Data Skills are Just as Important as Soft Skills in Higher Education | Inside Higher Ed
Opinion piece arguing importance of college students acquiring numeracy skills including collecting, organizing, interrogating, and making sense of data. Includes examples of institutions promoting data science education.

Data Literacy is an Essential Skill. Let’s Teach it that Way. | Education Week
Opinion piece arguing  for ways to ensure students are prepared for working with data in increasingly tech-rich professional environments.

Assessing Quantitative Reasoning

Assessing Quantitative Reasoning | Bowdoin College
Rubric aligning quantitative reasoning behaviors and skills with examples and levels of competency.

Assessing Quantitative Reasoning: EVALUATE What Students Know | American Statistical Association
Article providing contextual support for quantitative reasoning assessment. Argues for student development of both quantitative reasoning and communication skills and provides student learning process that includes exploration, visualization, assimilation, logic, understanding, analysis, translation, and expression.